Ashes on the Water
by DasCheesenborgir
Summary: With the fabled Dragonborn disappearing to parts unknown following her victory over Alduin, a quiet disturbance in the northern ice fields goes undiscovered amidst the many turmoils still ravaging Skyrim. The otherworldly, lost soul that is left behind in the Sea of Ghosts is ill-needed by a province already on the precipice of destroying itself.
1. Ashes in the Sea

It began with a thin tendril of water trickling in. The splash it made as it grazed against the dead metal of his warped coffin sounded too sharp, too frigidly clear to possibly be real.

A murky groan reverberated along the boxy frame.

His own breath echoed shallowly within the icy confines of his helm, the distant thump of twin hearts just as surely fading into the muffled noise beyond the plating which enclosed him.

It was not much longer before the tender rush of water tapered off into a retreat, leaving him once more to his quiet purgatory.

…

The next time the alien liquid entered, it came with a bold hiss that was strong enough to send chills running down the dead fibre under his armored skin.

A growl rumbled throughout the drop pod's structure, the unexpected rush of feeble aggression nonetheless rousing him from lifeless, sightless reverie.

A reluctant spark flared somewhere in the dormant recesses of his battle armor. Embers of vigor dangled within reach of his motionless arms in the formless murk.

Instinct willed him to take hold of it, and yet he hesitated. He drew in a wispy breath through the metal grills of his mouth, the crispness of the water streaming in nearly drowning out what little strength he had left.

The sound had become a soothing cascade by now, water folding into itself as opposed to crashing into parched metal. Ripples brushed against the battered armor skin of his boots.

It was almost enough to mask the screeching death throes of the drop pod. A faint flame ignited in the angry red eyes which adorned the otherwise stoic visage of his helm.

He watched through numb and frost-speckled lenses as the riveted hull across from him tore apart under the influx of ice water. The clear liquid poured into the vacant chamber, pooling beneath him.

Serene waves flowed along the surface, muddying his scarred reflection with gentle sways of dim light. The wrought metal cross hanging upon his chestplate wavered, and the lines between white cloth and black armor blurred together in a cloudy mist.

Even so, it was the dull sheen of his sword which shone brighter in the rapidly flooding troop bay.

It hung in an eerily vacant row of seats across from him, the stony silver surface of its blade staring back at him. The chains which once bound its hilt to his hands were broken, dangling from the handle as they danced with the rising water.

He ground his armored fingers into the restraints clamping him to his watery grave, tiredly willing the cords of synthetic muscle in his armor back to war with the familiar cacophony of grinding metal.

Another chunk of the drop pod broke away, bending inwards with a rush of water flowing in through the jagged rift left behind.

Numbing coldness wrapped around him in a soft embrace as he yanked himself free of his restraints, the water never breaking in its gentle motions as he waded over to his weapon.

A cascade of ripples washed over his helmet, wiping away the crystals of ice that had condensed over its eyes. His boots stumbled in the murk, bringing him to the precipice of slipping away.

He knelt there for a moment, the furious roars of the drop pod steadily mellowing out as water enveloped the entire chamber.

Soon, he was left with only the void of his own mind, and the shallow thumping of two hearts that pulled in two different directions.

…

Some small semblance of clear thought slipped into his mind, above the cloudy musings of still awakening senses.

It sent a sharp cold running through what flesh still remained inside him, a shivering realization that chilled him more than this alien water ever could.

 _I am alone._

He released a breath, loud enough to grate over the distortions of his helmet's vox, clear and reverberating to him in the void of his helmet underneath the stifling water. Armored legs sluggishly pushed him back upwards.

His hands found the hilt of his weapon, fingers lethargically taking their dutiful place on the worn handle.

Still, he did not fight as a sudden force entered the hold with him, nudging him towards a craggy opening where some faint light was rippling in. Only when it dragged him to the precipice between the collapsing confines of his tomb and the open abyss beyond did he dig the barred soles of his boots into the ground, anchoring himself to what would be certain death in just a few moments.

 _I am alive._

And he should not have been.

He gazed down into the unending darkness which yet lay beneath his feet, as though doing so would show him a spark of guidance he so desperately sought in that moment.

It never came.

With a half-hearted push of his legs, he launched himself away from the crumpling confines of the drop pod. He drifted away from the final, muted screech that the immobile hulk of alloy bellowed out, buckling in on itself in a violent cascade of sundered metal.

The chain which had been snaking so dangerously loosely around his sword's handle slipped away to the open expanse beneath him, carried away by the soft currents of the sea.

His twin hearts throbbed with a foreign sensation, a trepidation that a century at war had never prepared him for.

It was all he could do for the moment to stifle the rush of thoughts, the embrace of the sea, and propel himself upwards towards an otherworldly light refracting through mottled lenses.


	2. Chapter 1

The mere steam from the wooden bowl of stew placed in front of him was welcome anodyne for the chilling stiffness that had settled in Cedric's jaw.

All the better, for the earthly aromas that seeped into his nostrils shortly after awakened a rumbling in his empty belly which almost had him gnashing his teeth in anticipation.

He did not do so, however.

The warping haze which wafted up from its bubbling surface gave him pause. An eerie sensation crept up his spine, a certain instinct that he'd seen this before flaring to life like the scalding flames of the ore smelter.

There was a crack, a creak of wood from behind him. A cold draft wrapped around the lumps of fur that enveloped his sinewy figure, brushing against the pallid skin of his exposed hands. His fingers went taut against the splotchy grey surface of the table.

He heard the jostle of heavy boots against stone and metal plates shuffling against leather, and his back instinctively went rigid- the stings of week-old lashes on his back felt painfully fresh all of a sudden.

He felt his neck going limp, his head slowly drooping downwards as though the messy locks of raven hair dangling in front of his face were anchoring him to the table. His heart beat in tandem with the thundering footsteps behind him.

His nails brushed against something curved and rigid on the table- a handle, of some sorts. Slowly, as the thumping of boots beat ever louder on his ears like tribal war drums, he wrapped his lanky fingers around it.

The footsteps reached a crescendo as he took firm hold of the object- a single blue eye peeked out from underneath the curtain of hair shrouding his visage to confirm what weapon he had so fortunately come upon. It was a wooden spoon.

"Hail, Thoring. How have you been?"

A withering breath slipped out from Cedric's parched lips as the heavy footfalls of the inn's new guest went right past him. Still, he kept his head low.

The voice he heard spoke with the thick, sludgy accent he was all too used to hearing from Nord men. His fingers wrapped tighter around the spoon.

"As well as anyone can be these days. The nightmares have stopped, at least."

Cedric wished he could say the same.

He peeked up some, heartbeat still thudding in his ears. The armor lining the new figure's back looked different from that which he was used to seeing- small metal plates wrapped around a coat of what seemed like leather as opposed to one large mass of imposing steel. The helmet, cradled in their hands and facing back towards Cedric, stared at him with empty, rectangular eyeslits laid over a blank visage. The spotted grey metal was altogether free of the sort of pointless embroidery he'd grown used to seeing, save for a peculiar circle dimly stamped into the helmet's forehead.

It was very… unlike Nord craftsmanship. At least from what he'd seen.

He relaxed some more as the two voices slurred into casual banter, the rush of hot blood in his veins tapering off to a lukewarm simmer.

"Hey. Wake up. Your stew's going to get cold soon."

His head raised back up to meet the disapproving glare of the inn's maid, the stained cowl she wore casting a dark shadow over her face. "And we don't take kindly to patrons sleeping in the common area. If you need a place to stay, rent a room."

"Right. Sorry," breathed Cedric, at least halfway sympathetically. He gazed past the polished armor of the newcomer, took note of the patchy, threadbare garments that the innkeeper- 'Thoring', if he'd heard correctly- wore.

The maid walked away with nary another word, thick boots thumping loudly against the creaky wooden floor, dragging the scratchy ends of a broom behind her.

"The Hall of the Vigilants was destroyed, you know."

Cedric's ears perked up at the mention of that, the word 'Vigilant' bringing a spark of remembrance to mind. He remembered it being passed around over the dirty nighttime fires, rumors of an eerie hooded figure tirelessly stalking the Markarth streets, by day and night.

One of the smaller voices at the fire had recalled only a brief encounter with the man, but the voice was so broken and babbling by then that nobody but Cedric paid it any heed. He remembered the boy, his physical form blurry and smudged in the grimy recesses of his memory, but with the image of the child's malformed corpse resting against the stained pillars the morning after that night fresh in his mind.

Nobody really knew what that Vigilant had done, ultimately- but something in Cedric's gut told him he wouldn't mourn the passing of more of that hooded man's ilk.

"What? How? Who?"

"Vampires." One word, spoken with such a disdainful growl, was apparently all that was needed to answer all those questions.

"By the Gods, it never ends…"

"If you know of any able-bodied men or women-"

"What? So you can march them away into some damned war against _vampires?_ Any 'able-bodied man or woman' with more blood than mead in their hearts in Dawnstar have already gone, Rik! To fight the _Empire_!"

A tense silence fell over the inn after Thoring's outburst, the dwindling crackle of the hearth the only sound left as the only other pair of eyes in the room drifted over to the counter. The maid's expression held an even deeper grimace than before, but she said nothing.

"I think it would be best if you left," Thoring said, a hint of somberness battering away the spark of fiery demeanor that had slipped into his voice.

Another pregnant silence filled the air, lingering for seconds as the crackle of burning wood grew ever quieter. The sound of shuffling metal broke it, the armored newcomer sliding his helm back over the short-cropped blonde hair upon his head.

"Stay safe, friend," he murmured out as clearly as he could through the sheets of iron encasing his head. Thoring offered no blessing of his own in return, instead opting to sluggishly run the dirty washcloth gripped in his hands around in aimless circles on the countertop.

It wasn't until the armored man left the building that Cedric relaxed, sitting upright again. A pathetic crack rang out as a charred black mass of ash tumbled down onto stone.

"I'll get some more firewood," said the maid as she too scrambled out the door in accord, the worn wooden handle of her broom clattering against the floor.

Cedric kept his gaze fixed on the innkeeper, watching the man continue to tend to his counter with such a… crestfallen gait. A stony mask fixed over his visage, never breaking, always frowning, but with the mild quiver breaking into his motions betraying the emotions he was evidently trying hard to suppress.

It was a look Cedric was admittedly quite familiar with. He breathed a shaky breath of his own, quietly reevaluating a few things he'd taught himself over a grueling twenty years.

Eventually, Cedric's baser instincts overtook his bout of curiosity.

He turned his attention back down to the bowl of stew in front of him, hungrily eyeing the glazed chunks of meat floating around in the richly colored broth. He held fast though, inhaling the aromas again, savoring the smell of real food, that _he_ had bought with gold out of the grimy leather pouch nestled warmly inside his furs. Savoring his newfound freedom.

The people here were different. Maybe they would actually take him in- maybe he could start over after all.

 _Food first,_ he mused as he dug his spoon into the bowl.

Tomorrow, he'd pay a visit to the town's mine, see if he could put his lifelong talents to honest labor for once. Cidhna Mine already seemed like such a distant memory as he sunk his chattering teeth into their first bite of succulent stewed meat.


	3. Chapter 2

The early morning air sunk its claws into Cedric, the warmth of the inn's hearth and food slammed out of him as though he had been struck by a hammer. Gusts of white blew out of his lips as he exhaled a shaky breath, his body momentarily failing him as he shivered and fell against the inn's door frame for support. The frosted wood that his fingers clung onto was no more forgiving than the powdery snow on the ground, whose coldness seemed to pierce right through his boots.

He gasped as he inhaled, almost choking on the influx of icy air. The lumps of food inside his stomach felt like they had frozen over into glaciers. His whole body locked up in quivering contortions, the thick furs which he had traveled in for days seeming to do nothing for him now.

His eyes glazed over as they caught the glistening rays of rising sunlight, ore veins of pink refracting over the crystal clear sky.

The sea shifted about lazily, silvery soft waves brimming over it rippling through the murky reflection of the sky above. His breathing steadied as he watched its gentle motions, his sinewy, quivering muscles slowly stabilizing as the northern air seeped into his blood.

"You don't intend to go out to there, do you, traveller?"

Cedric craned his neck around, the startlingly sudden voice from right behind him not even enough the break the graceful calm which the air gripped him with.

He exhaled a wispy breath towards Thoring, waking mind still trying to process the question which had been posed to him.

"The Sea of Ghosts," Thoring insisted steadily, craggy face betraying no discomfort at the coldness despite there being only a tunic between him and the frigid seabreeze.

"No." A shrill wind howled by Cedric's ears, the black locks of his hair shuddering in the breeze as it flooded past him and into the inn.

Thoring, stony expression braving the cold without fail, merely nodded, and turned to march back inside, presumably to his countertop. A lonely post to hold down, in such an empty place.

Perhaps it was the solemn quietness he moved with that sparked some empathy in Cedric- or perhaps it was just natural curiosity- but against his instincts, Cedric called out towards Thoring's retreating back. "Why do you ask?"

The muffled thump of footsteps ground to a halt, leaving only the eerie wail of the wind ringing in his ears.

"Something feels wrong about it is all. Can't say what, exactly. I s'pose that just makes me even more uneasy about it."

"Just a hunch?"

A tired pair of eyes turned back to meet Cedric's gaze, coal-dark rings encircling the pits which they rested in. "Aye. That it is."

They stood like that for a moment more, Cedric half-wondering if he was freezing solid in the tunnel of wind between the inn and the pitiless cold outside.

"If there's nothing else, friend, I'd rather you close that door. Would be a shame if you came back to an ice cave for rest."

"Right," Cedric breathed, sliding off the door and letting the wind carry it back into its rightful place.

His eyes lingered on the sturdy, worn wood as it slammed shut.

His numbed hands ran over the cold surface of his fur garments, grasping for the pouch of coins stashed inside. The absent weight of ten gold pieces was palpable.

If all went well, he wouldn't need to come back here for rest at all.

 **0-0-0**

Ultimately, even the morning chill proved incapable of stifling the hammering heartbeat inside his chest as he approached the Dawnstar mines. What had appeared to him as thin wisps of smoke in the distance just minutes ago now towered over him as great, cloudy pillars of ash, the acrid stench of burning metal thawing the numbness in his body.

His boots trudged shakily through the snow, the crunch of crisp white giving way to the wet squelches of grey sludge.

He ground his teeth together to brace himself against the sight of the smelter, its splotchy hull bending and swaying with distorted waves of heat floating around it. A lone man stood by, dressed in naught but a black-stained tunic and threadbare pants, shoveling coals into the furnace.

Cedric slowed his advance, trying to work some semblance of calmness into his quivering body.

 _I'm ready. I'm ready._

His boots sloshed to a halt footsteps away from the man by the smelter, the raggedy old figure continuing about his work with a slumped resignation Cedric was all too used to seeing. It gave him pause, for certain. He watched silently for moments more, hoping the man would notice him standing by so he wouldn't have to interrupt.

When Cedric at last caught the man's withering gaze, his eyes almost as dead cold as the snow, he found no luck in being acknowledged as the man's sunken frown merely deepened before resuming his dredging work.

A spark of anger flickered within Cedric, like the faint embers floating out from the smelter.

"Hey," he said, perhaps more forcefully than he should have in the moment, but it did at least catch the smelter worker's attention. The man's motions slowed, and he craned his unsightly gaunt face around towards Cedric.

"What do you want?"

His breath stank of smoke and mead. His voice, gravelly and drawling, sounded as though both had taken their toll on his throat in equal measure.

Gold. Safety. Freedom- simple things Cedric imagined any man in Skyrim wanted.

Looking at the pathetic state of this man, the crushingly oppressive smoke billowing over them, he was left wondering whether he'd come looking in the right place after all.

"I heard Dawnstar needed miners."

Wintry grey eyes scrutinized him from behind a smear of ash, a thin frown curling up into a shriveled grimace.

"So it does. What's it to you?"

Cedric's eyes flittered around, appraising his horrible drab surroundings with dread settling in the pit of his stomach like a heavy lump of coal.

"I can help." The words tumbled out of his mouth with none of the fiery determination he had worked up the night before, and he soon found himself almost wishing he could take them back.

"You? _Help_?" A mirthless chuckle rumbled out from the smelter worker's ugly mouth, their lips twisting into a wretched grin showing off his gnarly teeth. "You look like you've crawled out of a slave pen."

His felt his hands tightening into fists. His knuckles thawed from the cold with a stinging pain which only reminded him of the scars and scratches which criss crossed over them.

"Struck a nerve, did I boy?"

"I've mined for all my life," snapped back Cedric, his voice hovering just above a snarl.

The smelter man's hideous visage hardened, his eyes narrowing, his lips settling back into their tightly pressed grimace.

"I know my way around silver," insisted Cedric, softer, as he reined in the fiery indignation lapping at his heart. "I know the mine owners are looking for people like that."

" _Quick_ silver, boy. There's a difference."

"I-"

"Talk to Beitild."

His words trailed off into the wind as the smelter man, his piece apparently said, returned to work.

The scrape of rusty metal against coals filled his ears as he stood listlessly in the wet snow, flakes of what could have been ash or snow beginning to collect on Cedric's slumping shoulders.

He considered lashing out again. Angrier this time, demand respect from the pathetic old wretch before him.

 _Leave. There's nothing for you here._

His fingers uncurled, dangling from his porcelain hands.

"She's usually loitering around the old Iron-Breaker mine this time of day. Gods only know why she's so fond of the old shithole."

The old man's eyes met Cedric one last time, the shuffling cacophony of coals coming to an eerie halt. "I guess some people just can't run from the past, eh?"

 **0-0-0**

The streets were as quiet as when Cedric last trudged through them, the soft glow of the sun reflecting harshly off the crystalline white sheets of snow.

He drifted along, lazily, aimlessly, like the waves in the rumbling sea beyond.

His eyes were inevitably drawn to it again, the unending expanse of shifting lights mesmerizing to a pair of eyes which could not fathom such a sprawling space.

' _You don't intend to go out there, do you?'_

The words of the innkeeper… Thoring- turned about in his mind as he watched the distant silhouettes of birds soaring over the sea.

A queer wind brushed unruly locks of hair out of his face, but he did not mind it at all, even as it trailed by with a soft wail.

For a time, he simply stood there, once again letting the coldness of the air seep into his snowy white skin, steal away his breath.

' _I guess some people just can't run from the past, eh?'_

He squinted, eyes catching faint ripples breaking along the lazy surface of the ocean. Silvery scales glinted in the sunlight before dipping back into the murky unknown.

"To oblivion with this place," he murmured quietly to himself, vaguely aware of the worn-down, frost-speckled houses around him. The pillars of acrid smoke tainting the clear sky behind him.

He'd find a way, he reassured himself. To somewhere- a place far away from the mines and grime and ash of his past. To a place where he could be as free as the birds flying over the sea, and the fish swimming in it.


	4. Chapter 3

The voices that woke Cedric were muffled, murky. The same formless distortion greeted his eyes as he opened them with the sluggishness of an otherworldly creature rising from water.

The dim glow of warm, orange light blended with harsh bronze and cold rock.

" _Cedric!"_

He gasped, inhaling a mouthful of stifling air as that one word pierced the veil of slurring noise around him. His sight sharpened, the blurs at the edge of his vision receding somewhat.

" _Bastard Reachmen! Kill them all!"_

He saw the glint of blood on the flange of the mace. The specks of eviscerated flesh which clung to the metal.

Time seemed to grind to a halt as his gaze drew downwards, the pandemonium around him whizzing by at a hellish pace, screams and shouts screeching at his ears beyond a muffling veil. He blinked, trying to make sense of the defiled and limp body slumped across his vision.

Make sense of its warm, calloused skin through the scratches which lacerated it. Piece together the smudgy, comely face it once held from the jellied globs of red which poured from its neck and scattered over the stone.

 _I am sad._

He made the observation with such a bizarre detachment, his heartbeat thumping limply in the back of his mind when it should have been roaring like tonnes of star-wrought metal being crushed under the merciless weight of the ocean.

His weightless body launched from its helpless perch on the ground as the guardsman's mace flailed harmlessly past his head, his arms effortlessly lashing out and punching clean through the armored figure's chest. There was no scream, no reverberating feedback from the savage impact rushing up his arms. It was like tearing through soiled parchment.

A queer chill nipping at the back of his mind tempered his aimless anger with a sliver of fear.

Something danced at the periphery of his senses, an… _alien?_ thing threading itself through the cushioned murk of his memories, beckoning him towards it.

" _Cedric! Over here!"_

His eyes snapped up, his sudden motions sending ripples through the slowly trudging world around him. He opened his mouth to cry out, call out, to the faint voice which carried his name with such urgency. No words came as he bellowed silently into the void.

The ragged flesh of the guard he'd killed slipped through his fingers like dirty, sludgy water. It filtered into his fading surroundings, melding grotesquely with the broken corpse of his beloved Thera in the distance.

 _Thera!_

The name died on his tongue as soon as it came to mind, the bloody ruby glint of her memory slurring away into the fiery deluge.

 _Focus._

The voice boomed into his consciousness, sending quakes running through his already quivering form. It prodded at him with a callous arrogance, grasping him by his limply hanging neck and forcing his gaze away from the mesmerizing pain of his past. His hands, still slick with blood, tightened even further into fists, craggy nails digging into his palms.

His world blurred and blacked out, the faint, lingering impact of some formless mass ringing in his ears as he tumbled into the ground.

 _Listen to me._

He listened, for a moment, if only because he could no longer _see_.

He listened, and heard only the screams of people he had come to see as his friends. He heard the choking cries of one which he some day might have called his loved one. He heard the hateful screams of those who'd stood over him all his life, and the frenzied bellows of madmen and warlocks clashing with them over the din of clanging metal and shearing flesh-

A firm grasp yanked him away from his memories, roughly shoving him towards a dark alleyway hidden from the raging fires.

 _It was not your fate to die with the rest of them._

He tumbled into the shadows with a forceful splash, darkness enveloping him. He flailed in the abyss, blackness swimming by his vision like loosely floating ashes.

The voice continued to ring in his ears, soothing azure hands tugging at his limbs in directions he could not comprehend. He thrashed about in its grip, the frenzied motions coursing through his body with a physical heaviness that felt all too real.

A single arm broke free from the confounding forces enveloping him, the serene voice reverberating ever more urgently throughout his trembling bones. He reached out towards the one thing which looked familiar to him in this tumultuous ocean, the moonlit glint of a broken chain floating in the tumbling abyss.

The broken chain of a free man.

Freedom! Had he, _Cedric,_ not earned his freedom!?

The tightening grips desperately fighting to pry his feeble mind away from his petty mortal musings weighed upon him more heavily than any chains could.

 _No._

He could feel the beginnings of a scream welling in the drowning pits of his lungs as the image of that chain slipped away. His body propelled helplessly through the blackness towards a horrible white cold he could not bear to face.

Baleful red eyes bled into his sight, hard ruby lenses burning through his blindness with an otherworldly glare even as they cast their gaze downwards with a quiet melancholy that seemed unbefitting of such terrifyingly incomprehensible... things.

An icy chill ran down his spine, a windy whisper from the Sea of Ghosts grazing by his ears.

" _Without the dark, there can be no light."_

It was the last thing he could discern before his very figure, ephemeral as it was, buckled and folded in on itself.

 **0-0-0**

Cedric awoke with a scream, his hoarse voice, finally given form once more, bellowing out into the faint coldness of his room even as he bolted upright.

Sweat dribbled down his pallid skin, every trickle seeming to send shivers coursing through his sinewy, but _intact_ body. The air nipped savagely at his drenched figure, but he shakily drank it in with a ravenous thirst regardless.

His blue eyes darted about every empty corner of the room, _his_ room, however transient the ownership was, watching the knotted wooden boards with a wide open, unblinking gaze.

The candle at his bedside table had long since gone out, but the faint rays of firelight trickled in outside from underneath the door. The dusty wooden shelf across from him bore no signs of mind-twisting distortions, and the only thing which tugged at his skin were the cold, soaked bedfurs matted to the lower half of his body.

His ears heard only the urgent pounding of fists upon his door when he stopped screaming. The clambering tumble of an opening lock.

The noises of such intrusion bothered him not, and if anything, he greeted the influx of light into his room with a welcome wide-eyed gaze as Thoring lumbered in.

The innkeeper did not say anything, and did not move any closer towards Cedric from his perch on the door frame. The dark circles hanging under his eyes, the ever-present slump in his shoulders- somehow, Cedric felt that they too came from many sleepless nights.

"A dream," Cedric rasped out when his breath stilled enough for him to form words again. "The Sea of Ghosts."

And more, of course. So much, _painfully_ more. But musings on the past alone, no matter how much they stung, were not enough to wake him, screaming, in the night.

No. He looked into the empty eyes of Thoring, the barren gaze of someone who could only watch those suffering from the same ailment they were with a solemn pity, and knew now that they had both seen the same thing.

"All the other townsfolk I'd spoken to were sure it was over," drawled Thoring. "That the nightmares were gone. Ever since that Priest of Mara left for the tower on the hill. Sure enough, they've all slept soundly since then."

"But not you," said Cedric, his voice still barely carrying enough strength to speak above a whisper.

Neither of them spoke for some time, and only the shivering, ragged breaths of Cedric filled the dank room. Some sliver of feeling began to worm its way back into his nostrils as his body began to steady itself, the rank odor of his own sweat palpable.

"I lost my daughter to the dragons," said Thoring quite suddenly.

Cedric's gaze softened, his waking mind, having momentarily shaken the queerness of his dreams, immediately realizing that though it was the nightmares which woke men like them in the pitch darkness, it was something far more sinister which slowly drove them into the shuffling depths of quiet despair.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I know. You seem like a man who's well acquainted with loss."

The remark would have had him scrambling to leave just a day ago, Cedric mused. Being a Markarth fugitive in a Nord town, he couldn't be too careful. Something told him that was the last thing Thoring was concerned about though- so he sat in his bed, and nodded solemnly.

"Ordinary travellers have never shared the same night terrors I have. I can only suppose this curse is for those who've already their fair share of burdens."

They sat and stood respectively like that for moments longer, with only the quiet crackle of the hearth outside as company for the reigning silence.

Cedric's eyes eventually dropped down to the drenched furs he laid in, the filthy wetness of them clinging to his skin with a foul chill. He made no effort to free himself of them, though it was certainly not in the mind of being decent in front of the innkeeper.

Freedom.

What a laughable concept he fooled himself with.

Two days ago, he'd resolved to leave Dawnstar in the early morning, strike out on his own and seek fortune elsewhere. The day after that, he'd resolved to do the same after another night's sleep and a warm meal.

Had he not been woken by this dream, he likely would've put off his departure again in the morning. Curl up in these rank furs and hide for scant moments more from the world.

He glanced up as Thoring retreated from his room, dragging his booted feet across the ground back to his familiar old countertop, no doubt.

He closed his eyes as the door shut again, peering into the darkness of his memories in search of some distant discussion with the one light that had been in his old life.

" _Without the dark, there can be no light."_

 **0-0-0**

He wasn't sure if it was the queer dream-whispers he'd caught only a fleeting glimpse of, or if it really was the bittersweet images of Thera he had reluctantly dug out of his mind which had him brought him out to the shore.

The water churned up against the gravel, quiet roars roiling all along the coast from the abyssal expanse beyond. The waves shifted before his eyes like moonlit shadows.

After what he had been through moments ago, he would be lying to himself to say he was not afraid to be standing out there, his clothes doing nothing to shield his still sweaty body from the wailing winds swirling around him. To be standing underneath the two moons and the star-speckled sky, their uncaring gaze reflecting murkily off the deep sea.

He knelt down at the water's edge, legs quivering as he wondered if it would reach out and swallow him whole, just as it had in his dream.

His breathing echoed ever more loudly in his ears as he peered intently into the darkness, his chest tightening with an overwhelming sense of wrongness the longer he did so.

He reached out with a naked hand, pallid white skin stretched thinly over bony appendages standing out staunchly against the backdrop of the black water. His fingers, numb as they were, bristled in the chilling breeze.

" _I'm not afraid of anything, Thera."_

That could not have been farther from the truth back then. He'd been afraid of losing her. So fearful had he been to see her die that he could not bear to stay by her side when the fighting had broken out in the streets.

He was weak, too. _She'd_ been his strength in the mines, pushing him to use his twiny arms, heft the pickaxe, fight through the rock and pain so they could have time together. At her side, he would have been nothing more than a liability.

And now…

Now, his fingertips hovered above the water.

A shaky gasp escaped his lips as he plunged his hand in. The freezing current rushed up his arm, tearing through flesh down to his bones with a horrible white cold.

His fingers danced about without feeling in the water, the shock of the cold blotting out all other sense.

It was _insanity,_ foolishness.

He ground his teeth together, squeezed his eyes shut, beckoned the dark to come to him again, as it had in the dream. He reached in deeper. A wintry grasp seized him by the sleeves of his coat, waves tugging at his arm.

He didn't even know what had happened to her. And somehow, that hurt even more than the thought of seeing her die.

His eyes snapped open, that familiar chill, the overwhelming _fear_ rushing up his spine when he felt his fingers brush against something solid in the water. Something small, rounded, the invisible edges of it intertwining with more of the same.

He was afraid now, but he wrapped his fingers around the object all the same. He was weak now, but he heaved through the cold, pulled his twiny arm out of the water and brought his shivering hand up to his eyes.

His ice-slicked fingers clasped a broken chain, its silvery, frosted metal shining faintly in the moonlight.

It only left him with more questions, more fear. That his dreams could blur into reality like this shook him to his core. Wondering _why_ this would happen left him with tears welling in his eyes, and a stifled sob clawing in his lungs.

It was all he could do to clench his cursed prize tightly to his chest, the cold heaviness of the metal seeping through to his heart as the ocean breeze brushed against his ears.

" _We have purpose."_


	5. Chapter 4

_What now?_

The question looped around in Cedric's mind endlessly as he sat on the bench, wordlessly rooting himself to the wood with the chain he'd found hidden inside his coat. Even now, pulled out of the sea and drying inside the warmth of the inn, the heavy metal pressed against his chest with a skin-piercing coldness.

He shuddered upon just acknowledging the sensation again. The chill which radiated from the thing was unnatural, setting his nerves into a quivering overdrive rather than numbing them like the frigid air.

Even so, he did not question whether or not he had done the right thing in seeking out the source of his fears. The desire to know more, to unveil the truth, spread throughout his mind like a virulent plague… setting its warped tendrils upon the stars themselves-

His breath hitched as he felt that trickle of intrusive thoughts enter his mind.

He closed his eyes and listened intently. Only the dying crackle of firewood greeted his ears.

He found nothing in the darkness, the void inside his mind.

 _Without the dark, there can be no light._

His single heart thundered against the chain clasped to his chest.

"Please," he whispered to _whatever_ it was which hounded him so. His plea trailed off before he could even give sound to it, sudden realization that he did not know what to even ask for settling in.

Still, nothing answered, and he was left opening his eyes to an inn that was as mundane and empty as when he had last seen it.

His eyes flicked over to the unmanned countertop, and then the shut door of one of the far rooms.

He wondered if perhaps Thoring could rest easy now. If this curse which had plagued the innkeeper had finally been passed on in its entirety, to _him_ now.

He felt for the pouch of coins lost within the folds of his coat, its weight seeming so small and insignificant now. Shaky, bony fingers fished it out from the still wet furs of one of his arms, and unbound the frayed string which tied it closed.

A paltry collection of coins clattered onto the table, the clinking cascade of those few gold pieces doing little to mask the sound of the inn's door opening. The cold breeze that followed did nothing to turn Cedric's musings away from himself.

His wide blue eyes zipped from coin to coin, working in a jumbled mess to try and count out what little wealth he had left, for a purpose he wasn't precisely even sure of yet. The meaningless faces printed upon them gazed emptily back at him, offering no more answers than anything else had.

"Hey."

He snapped up straight at the sound of the intruding voice, its silky dark tones caressing his ears with a gentle firmness. It faltered somewhat, perhaps because of his sudden movement.

"I… think you dropped this?"

He craned his neck around, unable to see the new figure too clearly but catching an intoxicatingly musky scent… almost like that of freshly fallen rain upon stone… emanating from her. It was a subtle undercurrent, capitalized by a hint of richly aged leather standing out from the grimy smells of the inn.

And himself, Cedric noted with a pang of insecurity.

Nevertheless, he swung his legs over the bench, pivoting himself around entirely to face the hooded woman's outstretched hand, her porcelain fingers pinching a gold coin.

"Oh," was all he could manage in response.

Perhaps it was just the contrast of the pitch-black cloth which enveloped her, but she seemed somehow paler than he was, white as snow, even with the dim glow of firelight touching upon her. His dim blue eyes uncontrollably trailed towards her own, her jrises practically glowing with an unnatural green.

A light shiver ran down his spine as he hastily turned his sight back to the coin, the shakes breaking through to his hands despite his attempts to suppress them as he reached out to take the offered gold piece.

He grimaced as his bony, calloused fingers came in brief contact with the woman's, her smooth skin radiating with the chill of the sea.

"Thank you," he murmured, turning his gaze downwards in spite of the dozens of questions springing to life in his mind, the wild thoughts trying to fit this mysterious woman in with the bizarre happenings he'd been experiencing. It was a pitiful, mewling voice inside him which told him that such a beautiful creature would never become entangled in his ugly fate.

He waited for the sound of footsteps trailing away, but they never came. His eyes remained rooted to the floor, and the woman's heavy boots, obscured by a curtain of black cast by her robes, never left his sight.

Curiosity overtook him as he slowly turned his gaze back upwards, finding, rather surprisingly, that the woman's head tilted quizzically in much of the same way his own was. A startled "Sorry," unexpectedly slipped out from her lips, a bizarre bashfulness momentarily overtaking the serene features of her face. "I'm just… you're not the innkeeper are you?"

"No," he managed to sputter out even as her eyes widened and mouth moved to correct herself on some unintended slight which might've slipped into her last question. He struggled hard to keep his eyes on hers, the wild intensity of them almost blinding to him. "I'm just passing through."

She didn't say anything immediately. Cedric bristled, feeling the urge to break his gaze away from her judging green eyes. Only because he didn't did he notice a peculiarly large… cask, of sorts, hanging from her back, the barren wood of its top poking out from over her shoulder.

"Why? Do you need a room?"

"Hm? Oh. No, I'm just… passing through, as well," she said with a warm smile. It may have been meant to reassure Cedric, but all it did was amplify the cold burn of the chain clutched to his chest. "I was just stopping by for directions. Might've taken a wrong turn along the way."

"Oh? Where are you headed?" He hadn't meant to pry any further into her business, certainly having enough of his own to worry about, but it felt… natural, to ask. He wasn't sure. It was certainly more comforting to turn the line of questioning to her than keep it on himself.

His keen blue eyes, honed for noting small details in hardened rock, quickly saw the slight droop in her eyes. The tightening of her mouth. He damned himself for asking.

Before he could scramble to offer his apologies however, she did still answer, albeit in broad strokes. "Out of province… for a while."

"Oh. I see."

The glimmer of somberness on her face was gone as quickly as he'd noticed it, her glossy lips twitching back up into a ghost of a smile. "Where are you headed?"

"The Sea of Ghosts." His answer came tumbling off his tongue before he'd even thought it through, the suddenness of it jarring himself more than it did her. Truthfully, he'd just still been musing over his next course of action, and had been dangerously close to settling on staying at the inn for another night, trickling away the coins in his purse until he had no choice but to set out for _somewhere._

 _No,_ he reaffirmed to himself. He was going out there, and he would find the bottom of his curse which had so peculiarly found its way to him.

"Oh? That's… interesting. Whereabouts in the sea exactly?"

His brows furrowed. A warm flush of embarrassment seemed to strangely be crawling up his neck as he admitted, "I don't know."

He saw her smile widen. "Are you a sailor or something?"

"No," he answered, the flush starting to work its way up to his frost-blasted cheeks. _I'm a slave miner stricken by a curse I can't even begin to comprehend._

"It's been a strange past few days," he did admit out loud. "I came here looking for work, but there's none to be found."

"I don't imagine you'd have any better luck looking out in the sea," she responded dryly, eyes glinting with a hint of mischief. He couldn't help but mirror her smile, despite the gloom of his situation.

"I certainly don't have any illusions about that. There's just something I need to see out there."

The woman just nodded, now turning her gaze around the room. Cedric's hopes rose suddenly, wondering if, somehow, against the expectations of that damningly small voice ringing inside his head, this woman really did have a part to play in whatever he'd gotten himself into. He waited silently, perhaps to hear confirmation, _anything,_ a sign,that she might've understood his plight.

It never came.

"Well, I really should be going, actually. It was nice chatting," she said with a last, fleeting smile before turning for the door.

Every part of Cedric berated himself for even thinking that anything else could've happened, and he nearly crushed himself back into his seat, hunched over and brooding, had a small, brazen fire not ignited within him. Had one, simple, unassuming thought not crossed his mind.

"Isn't it a little dangerous to be travelling at night? And without directions at that?"

He excused the fact that she needed directions after finding herself in a hold capital, noting that her very presence radiated a sense of foreignity. An exotic, striking darkness amongst the numbing canvas of white. His brows furrowed as he considered just what she sought in a quiet port town like this. He abandoned the line of questioning when his mind inevitably turned it upon himself.

The words had halted her in her footsteps, and though she did not turn to face Cedric, he could feel an uncomfortable tension beginning to flood the room.

Her shoulders drooped, and the cask drawn over her back sagged. He wondered just how heavily the thing must have weighed on her.

"I don't have a lot of time to lose. I'm sorry, I can't say anything more."

"You'll lose a lot more time if you're wandering aimlessly out in the dark, won't you?"

She pivoted around, fixing him with a gaze that had seemingly lost its warm façade. The ever-present chill resting upon his chest flared up to a strength he hadn't felt since he'd been at the shore just hours ago as he could've sworn he saw her perfect green eyes flicker into a baleful red, even if for just a moment.

He blinked, and saw with some hesitant relief that they were indeed still the striking emerald irises he'd been so smitten by.

She did not break the silence which hung between them, and Cedric did not feel content to let it linger.

"You're headed out to sea too, aren't you?"

It was not merely wishful thinking of his that hoped they had the same destination in mind. If the woman strayed this close to the province shoreline with the intent of leaving, there wasn't much else she could've been planning to travel by.

Even so, he felt a twang of regret at his insistence on asking after her now. Particularly when he'd been content to let it slide before.

The leaden heaviness upon his chest intensified. He would be lying if he denied that he'd already come to enjoy the mysterious woman's enthralling company, however brief their interaction was. A particularly vindictive fragment of his mind cursed him for feeling so, for letting his somber memories of Thera be eclipsed so easily.

He was all too eager to turn his thoughts away from that, focusing intently on the woman before him again. Her eyes were elsewhere, the pregnant silence she left hanging between them possibly carrying any number of meanings.

Finally, she relented, at least implicitly confirming his suspicions. "I came here to see if anyone was in port, maybe willing to let me tag along on their next voyage out. But this place looks like a ghost town."

"Aye," he nodded in agreement. He too had taken note of just how empty Dawnstar seemed, certainly in comparison to a city like Markarth. Thoring's outburst from a few days ago did come to mind- perhaps it was because of the war. "But what will you do now?"

It was question for himself as much as it was for her, now that he mentioned it. His eyes flickered down to the fallen coin that the woman had returned to him, unable to deflect the concerns about his personal conundrum anymore. How was he going to buy passage out to the sea if there was no one to take him?

She seemed to realize the same thing, peering at him more intently. Gauging him.

"I could ask the same of you."

He did not shy away from her judgement this time, meeting her eyes directly even as the full weight of the doubts and questions and insecurities which had tenuously swirled around in his mind came crashing down on him.

"I don't have much of an answer to give. This has all been quite sudden for me." He trailed off, intending to leave it at that but reconsidering soon after. They wouldn't get anywhere if they both just bounced vague answers off of each other. "I had a dream tonight, a nightmare, really. It was bizarre, as though it was… trying to tell me something," he realized, more to himself than anyone, as he took the time to actually recount the events of it. "I couldn't understand most of it. It was too much to take in. I felt like I was drowning in it all, in… the sea," he said, hesitantly adding the last detail. At what point had he been told it was the Sea of Ghosts?

"That does sound quite strange."

"It is. I wouldn't have thought much of it had the innkeeper not told me he'd had the same dreams. About the Sea of Ghosts."

The woman's gaze had softened somewhat, Cedric noted, her lips pursing in a gesture which did not seem as scornful as he'd expected.

"I don't have anywhere else to go," he admitted. "I don't know what else I am to do. I was a slave for all my life." He let the damning confession fly free throughout the inn, with only the faint sound of crackling fire to mask it from any prying ears. His heart thumped as he realized just how dangerous that was, and yet at the same time it felt as though a weight had been lifted off his chest. The chain which he'd fished out of the sea felt less like it was bound to just him.

Maybe the woman wasn't fated to be in whatever thing he'd fallen into. But was it so wrong of him to ask for her help?

 _Yes,_ a part of his mind screamed at him. Nothing else offered him an answer to that question.

And so he left it there, saying nothing more despite the rising urge to outright plea to this stranger for aid. Plea to lend him her strength, as Thera had. He fought the snivelling grimace crawling into his expression.

Despite his reluctance to say it aloud, she seemed to be able to see right through him with those piercing green eyes of hers.

"I know of an old jetty some ways north of Solitude, along the shoreline. It's… well, I know nobody _else_ would be making use of it."

His heart seemed to beat in tandem with her footsteps as she strode over to him, her lean and powerful figure towering over his limply sitting form.

"I can't tell you everything. But I could take you along… for a little bit."

His eyes trailed over to the cask peeking over her shoulder, the instinctive urge to reject her offer, only now try and salvage the ragged pride he'd dragged behind him, soiled and bloodied over the years. As much as he wanted help, _needed_ it, the last thing he wanted was to be just one more burden on someone else. He grew ever more conscious of his bony fingers and twiggy arms. His paltry collection of coins, to his numb nostrils, still heavy with the coppery scent of death. He had little he could offer in the way of help to her in return.

A thin smile worked its way over her lips when he did not answer immediately, her eyes lighting up with an intoxicating warmness, her understanding too good to be true. Too good for him, certainly. "Don't worry. I could use the company. Just as long you're alright with being in the dark."

 _Without the dark, there can be no light._

He nodded.

 **0-0-0**

The snow crunched beneath his boots as they trudged out of Dawnstar, the lone guard watching over the road out offering nothing more than a cursory warning about being on the alert travelling at this time of day. The mysterious woman, whose name Cedric did not even know yet, thanked and dismissed the guard with a courteous grace that Cedric would not have managed had he been caught leaving alone.

Just another reason he was thankful for her presence, he supposed.

The fresh, chilling air had eased the pain on his conscience somewhat, transforming a sliver of the guilt into gratitude. Still, he could not yet muster the strength to convey that gratitude to her. It was little comfort to him to see her hunch over much in the way he did as they began their trek into the deepening snow, working their way off the thinly indented roads and towards the trees, where the faint wails of the ocean winds swirled beyond.

As soon as they left earshot of the guard, Cedric cast a final, parting gaze back towards the port town, his eyes instinctively trailing towards the lonely inn sitting up on the snowy slope, peeking over the walls. He called to mind the first time he'd been in the inn, the last words that strangely armored figure had offered to Thoring before leaving.

It was a bizarre thought which crossed his mind, regarding a man which he'd hardly known for even three days, and spoken to for an even smaller fraction of that time.

Cedric closed his hands into fists over his chest, clutching the chain tightly towards him, embracing its scalding chill.

He decided, at the very least, that he would gladly bear this curse in Thoring's stead.

"Stay safe, friend," he whispered to the sea breeze.

He felt an eerie bristle flow through the pines around them, racing through to the chain clutched to his chest. It was a fleeting, barely discernable wind which touched upon his ears in rapid response.

 _"And we would have no purpose."_


	6. Chapter 5

The numbness in Cedric's cheeks began to thaw as light hues of pink swam into the sea just beyond the formless trail they followed, the gravel beneath his boots glimmering with the same colors.

A loud growl rumbled out from his stomach, bubbling over the ever-present roar of the sea. He pursed his lips and held his eyes even more strongly on the moist pebbles he treaded over, well-aware of a pair of green eyes now watching him.

The rhythmic crunch of the woman's footsteps slowed, falling out of pace with his own. Seeing no other choice, lest he quite clumsily walk right past- or worse, _into_ her, Cedric turned his gaze up.

Her eyes shone tenderly with an inkling of concern, brows gently furrowed as she studied him.

He noted, with no small amount of silent awe, that her lips had gained the lightest tinge of rose in the rays of the morning sun. A breeze swirled by, taking a few stray locks of her raven hair and splaying them out against the canvas of the dark blue sky from beneath her hood.

"You alright?"

He blinked, snapping himself out from his breathless trance. Before he could think to answer, another rumble sounded out from his stomach, prompting an embarrassed grimace from him.

"Oh. Right. You… haven't eaten since we left."

"Yeah," he said sheepishly, even as the woman rubbed the back of her hooded neck in a gesture that suggested she felt equally flustered. Why she did so eluded him.

He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the flaring sun, its orange warmth beginning to glimmer on the waves. He winced upon seeing how thinly stretched his skin was over his fingers, the harsh rays of coming daylight revealing the lingering weakness in his arms all too starkly.

"Come on. Let's head inland a little," said the woman, a curious grimace washing over her serene features as she pointed towards the fog-shrouded treeline. "The trees ought to shield us from the su- the wind a bit. And the marshes further in are teeming with all sorts of critters."

He didn't follow her train of thought, but he followed in her footsteps. The gravel beneath his boots gave way to moist soil, uneven mounds which shifted and sunk under his weight.

He hesitated as thin tendrils of mist grasped at his sleeves, their warmness washing over his cold and dry skin with an eerie familiarity. The smell of the wet earth, even though it was tinged by a saltiness he wasn't used to, didn't help to keep his mind from wandering back to the rich floors between the valleys of the Reach. However brief his time spent out there had been.

He squinted, finding it difficult to take his eyes off the treacherously loose soil he walked on. One foot after the other, his legs churned through the shaky dirt, fighting to keep him in a comfortable distance behind the quiet footsteps of the hooded woman. The terrain didn't seem to prove nearly as difficult for her, the footprints she left behind looking like neat engravings in firm snow while Cedric trampled over them.

She must have noticed his difficulty in keeping up, whether from his sludging footsteps or breathless heaving, he couldn't tell. "It's tough terrain to navigate, but there should be some dry patches large enough for us to set up camp at. The branches on the trees here make for decent firewood too."

"Oh," he grunted back, starting to catch onto her intentions. He spared a glance around him, surveying their immediate surroundings hopefully for some dry ground at the risk of stumbling in the damp earth. The mist loomed around them in thin curtains, faintly blurring his view of the distance beyond the sprawl of the black soil he continued to trudge through. The silhouettes of the trees cast eerie shadows, their gnarly limbs intertwining above and around him. Their bark was calloused, craggy black rinds contorting in swirls not unlike the wisps of mist beneath them.

"Over here," she called out, turning Cedric's attention over to where she waded into a cluster of grass which stretched up to her waist. The rustling cacophony that followed in her wake seemed to promise dryness, and so Cedric steeled himself, pushing through the last strides which separated him from her. He winced as he strode into their midst, faintly yellow fibres crackling at the rough furs of his clothes.

But even as he trampled them, their turgid stalks cushioning his footsteps, he could feel the soil underneath hardening, packing together densely. Rays of sunlight were beginning to peek through the thin sheen of fog around him, the nebulous blur they swirled around in receding a little more into the distance.

He momentarily forgot about the void welling in his stomach as he saw the woman pause in her stride, a palpable distance having grown between them now, leaning against the thick black trunk of a low hanging tree. She cast him a fleeting backwards glance through the gnarly branches, her brows furrowed, the whites of her eyes seeming to have gained a yellow glimmer…?

The thought left as quickly as it had come to his easily bent mind, the glare of the sun causing him to blink and squint away the sight. All that was left was a fleeting chill running down his spine, reverberating as though it travelled through his chest from the chain tucked away in the recesses of his coat.

A cold breath escaped his lips as he stalked up, his legs unconsciously shaking as he approached the woman. Her back was hunched over, her hooded head craned away from him, the thick layers of black cloth muffling the reedy gulps of air she inhaled. The thin cask she carried on her back rose and fell, betraying the heaving motions of her body.

"Are you okay?" In trying to stop the shaking anxiousness chaining down his lungs from slipping into his voice, his words ended up coming out as dead as the ice beyond the trees.

He needn't have bothered, really. "I'm fine," was the only response he got, measured and collected, as though she wasn't clearly weakening to a point even lower than he was.

The thought sent a fresh wave of panic over him, the rush of it momentarily overtaking the numbness that had sunk its claws into his bones. "You really don't seem well…" he ventured cautiously, walking up to her side and trying to peer around the obscuring hood enshrouding her head. He caught a glimpse of watery red dribbling from her pointed chin before she turned the other way.

His brows furrowed at the gesture, a spark of indignancy from the back of his mind, quickly stubbed out as it was, breaking through to the numbed white features of his face. He might've still said something had his eyes not caught the glint of glass. An empty flask disappearing around the woman's waist into the hidden recesses of a satchel tucked away in her robes.

"What is that?"

It seemed enough for her to drop the façade. Her head turned slowly towards him, Cedric's heart thumping with a peculiar dread. His mind raced with all manner of unsightly things that she could have been trying to hide from him under that hood at the moment.

A breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in wheezed out from his dry lips as he found her snow white visage bearing her usual smile, green eyes softening as she met his gaze.

"I… think I might've caught something on the road from before. Ataxia or something. Nothing a quick herb brew couldn't fix," she said, holding up the very flask she'd been trying to hide from him a moment ago. She gave it a cheeky little waggle in the air, sunlight strobing off its plain surface.

She was the same striking image he'd found himself so easily smitten by. And yet he couldn't help but remember the pale blood-red that he saw running from her mouth. The baleful crimson glint he'd caught in her eyes the night before… the same blazing shade he'd seen in the cold teardrop glare from his dreams.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

She faltered, but he couldn't bring himself to continue pressing her. She seemed fine now. That was all that mattered, wasn't it?

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to worry you. Though I guess that didn't really work out."

 _Gods damn her._ Try as he did to suppress it, a flutter broke into the thumping rhythm of his heartbeat as she bit her lip, the porcelain skin of her free hand bashfully playing with a few strands of raven hair that had come free from her hood.

It was all it took to throw away the rest of his worries and questions. He found the edges of his own mouth twitching upwards.

At least until a renewed growl from his stomach rumbled forth.

The woman's smile blossomed into a beaming grin, to him, more radiant than the sun itself.

"Now come on, help me get some branches off this tree. Let's see if we can get a fire going and fill up your stomach."

 **0-0-0**

Cedric had been a little nervous at the woman's proposition that she venture further inland on her own, considering her earlier bout of weakness. But even so, he figured he wouldn't be of much help to her if she did run into trouble- no doubt she thought the same.

So it was that he was left sitting in the small clearing they'd made in the grass, tending to the queer flame the woman had ignited with naught but her bare hands. Feeding the ravenous magickal fires every few moments with the sizeable stock of craggy branches they'd foraged.

He supposed _that_ was another thing that put him at ease. Anything that gave her trouble, she could probably incinerate with a flick of her wrist. She really was something.

A husky breath escaped his lips as he inched closer to the flame, savoring the warmth it radiated upon his gaunt cheeks. The coldness of the soil still bled through his leggings, but even that hardly fazed him anymore.

He felt safe. Even as the wind from beyond the trees seeped through the fog and slipped between the twisted black trunks to graze against his ears, carrying its ever-eerie tune.

The weight of the chain pressed yet heavier against him, its queer cold stubbornly refusing to release its grasp as the warmth of the fire embraced the flesh and fur around it.

 **0-0-0**

It wasn't much longer before the woman returned, with the largest crab he'd ever seen cradled limply in her arms. Its big, meaty claws looked large enough to crush the frail little things he sometimes stumbled upon in the damp corners of the mines.

They didn't have anything to boil it in though, so it sat directly in the fire, orange tongues of flame licking at the rough surface of its grey chitin. Crusts of salt peeled off from it.

Cedric's stomach growled as soon as he caught the scent of its charring carapace, earning him a chuckle from the woman. Her laughter touched upon his ears in a graceful peal, the sound coming like sweet music after the unsettling whispers from the sea he'd had stifled in his mind for so long.

"You know, I almost mistook that for the crab growling for a moment. It looks a lot more menacing staring at you from inside the flames, doesn't it?"

It was a silly remark to hear her make, but as soon as Cedric caught the crab's glazed-over glare, its beady black eyes staring soullessly at him in front of a fiery backdrop, he couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. It felt good. Hoarse and crackling as it was from a tongue that had not known laughter for years, it gave off an intoxicating resonance with the woman seated beside him.

"It's going to be great, I'm telling you. A bit messy without a proper grill or pan of sorts, but it's better than anything you could have served at a banquet hall."

"I can only imagine," he said, inhaling the salty aromas as they came off from the fire in steaming waves. The smells were wild, exotic, the crab cooking without any seasoning to muddy its natural flavors.

He was content to simply sit there, taking in the smells, the close presence of the woman warming him more than the fire itself.

"It's been ages since I've done anything like this," she mused out loud suddenly. "My father used to take me out hunting. Taught me how to track prey. Shoot with a bow."

Cedric turned around, watching her curiously as she trailed off. The flames flickered in her eyes, betraying a glimmer of somberness.

"He was… a hard teacher. Never one to really give praise, but quick to point out mistakes."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Cedric, his voice ringing with a quiet sincerity.

The woman's smile widened, but the sparks of joy that usually danced in her green irises were absent. "It's not to say he was an equally tough father. Quite the opposite, really. When we just… sat around the campfire after the hunts. And just talked about things. It was one of the only times we spoke of anything outside of my studies. But we used to go hunting a lot."

He saw her hand gently reach towards the cask which she'd slung off her back and laid between him and her, her fingers elegantly running along its marbled wood surface. "Those days didn't last as long as they should have."

His breath left his lips and did not return as she fixed him with her wistful gaze, pale beauty tempered with a mixture of sadness and happiness he couldn't fully comprehend. He just stared in silence, unsure of what to say.

He didn't need to say anything though, as the woman seemed to snap out of some kind of trance, chuckling sheepishly while glancing away. "I'm waxing nostalgic. Sorry."

"It's alright," he responded with a sincere smile spreading over his lips.

They lapsed back into silence, but the thumping in Cedric's heart did not still so easily.

The flames crackled, and the winds whispered in the distance. Echoing, beckoning to him.

He was on the precipice of losing himself in trying to make sense of the maddening dream-speak still swirling around in his head when she broke the stillness between them.

"Still, I'm glad you're here. It's good to be reminded of some of the sweeter memories of the past. Even if it is a sort of bittersweetness."

Again, he wasn't sure what to say, but his heartbeat was drumming up to a thunderous crescendo. He couldn't even find the courage to look at her - his gaze was instead fixed on the baleful black eyes of the fearsome mudcrab in the fire.

"Oh. Um. I hope that didn't come out too suddenly. All of it, I mean. I'm... sure a lot of what I went on about probably doesn't mean much to you."

"No, no, it's fine. I'm glad to be here. And to hear you talk," he stammered out in a way he hoped came off half as elegantly as her own bashful rambling.

Still, he found a smile crawling onto his face. That seemed to be happening a lot lately.

He looked over to her, and found that his hammering heartbeat only seemed to grow in intensity when he saw her mouth mirroring his.

"My name's Cedric, by the way."

"Oh. That's a wonderful name."

Shamelessly, his lips split open into a toothy grin.

"What about you? What's your name?"

She tilted her head in a curious gesture, her eyes sparkling as she considered his question. It wasn't her initial hesitation which almost crushed the joy swelling inside him.

"You can call me Sera."

Her name reminded him too much of Thera.


	7. Chapter 6

"Come on, sleepyhead. Back to work."

Cedric groaned, the noise from his throat seeming to muffle and distort in the lingering shroud of unconsciousness wrapped around him. It was like warm mist touching upon his skin.

He buried his face deeper into the sweat-matted furs, mumbling feebly and grasping for the warmth of the woman who yet lay with him. His fingers moved true, brushing against warm skin and the hardened muscle underneath. It earned him a husky chuckle which echoed throughout the expanse of his cavernous mind.

 _Don't go._

His words died on the numbness of his tongue.

"But we have to go," Thera responded so matter-of-factly, even as she shifted about and wrapped her arms around him in a firm, steely embrace. His vision blurred and his eyes closed as he nuzzled against the watery mirage of her figure.

 _It isn't fair._

His fingers, blistered and chipped, reached out to trace the hard contours of her face. Her… blazing green eyes. Supple white skin, cold to the touch. Radiating with the chill of the sea, flooding through his flesh from his fingertips. Wrapping around his lungs like a broken chain.

His eyes snapped open, heart pumping shallowly in his ears as he gazed upon the eerily beautiful visage of Sera, her shadowy dark hair enveloping her snowy skin in a crisp clarity that defied the murkiness around them. A cool ocean breeze sent locks of raven fluttering into his eyes.

" _Without the dark-"_

"Where's Thera?" He croaked, suddenly aware of the moonlit gravel sprawled beneath him, and the roiling waves of the sea brushing against his arms. They tugged at his sleeves.

She cocked her head at him quizzically, a queer smile crawling over her glistening ruby lips. A thin trickle of pasty blood ran down to her chin.

"Who's Thera? My name's Sera. Remember?"

His breaths grew heavier, huskier, raggedly bouncing around inside the void of his mind as he tried to recall- tried the remember- her coppery tan skin. Stony set jaw. Her jellied eyes drooping out from her sockets, her skull eviscerated by the wicked flanged head of a mace.

He choked on a cry of panic, his limbs failing to respond to the sudden urge he had to run, dive into the murk of his memories in search of what he _did_ know. He _knew_ what Thera looked like!

"Cedric. Listen."

The otherworldly coldness of the waves pulled him into its steady current, his numbed body unable to fight it. Sera floated in a formless mass, tendrils of hair pushing her alongside him. Carrying him out to sea on a bed of moonshadows.

" _We have purpose."_

The deep black water thundered out to him. The cold raced up to his neck, threatening to plunge him into swirling nothingness.

"I don't understand," he whimpered through the colorless fluid flooding his lungs. Swallowing his eyes. The last he saw of Sera's image was that of a red-eyed hag, the bloody shade of her irises searing into his sight even as all else faded away.

The chain lashed to his chest pulled him deeper into the shadows, binding his limbs, restraining them from throwing him around in the murk without aim. The descent was slow, steady, and yet he felt as though he was somehow rising out of his own shell of a body. Tethered to his flesh only by a broken string of star-metal links.

The lingering crimson dots that flared in his sight blossomed out into sharp teardrops. Hard lenses which peered coldly in his direction. Pitiless. Remorseless. They cast rays which pierced through his waning flesh, a gaze which did not seem to even register or acknowledge him. And yet Cedric felt a strange, faint presence from the shadowy form behind those eyes. _Two_ heartbeats pumping, yet weighed down by… something. A resonance that fell in chilling rhythm with his own heart, beating against the grip of the chain that now bound it.

Its voice, finally unobscured to him by the warping distortions of the sea, echoed with a solemnness that was yet blackened by the metallic snarl of its glinting chrome teeth.

" _Without the Emperor, there is nothing."_

 **0-0-0**

A shaky breath flooded into Cedric's lungs as his eyes shot open, a thrashing twitch coursing through his body as it regained its senses. Cold, dry grass pressed against his cheek as he flopped onto his side, coughs wracking his body and threatening to churn out the bits of crab meat sitting heavy in his belly. His hands quivered against the matted fibres on the ground, an unearthly chill hanging over the drowsily stirring blood in his limbs. He retched, yet expelled nothing but puffs of air.

His hands scrabbled through his coat, grasping desperately for the icy cold touch of the chain he kept inside. When he found it, rough tips of his nails grazing against its metal, he wrenched it out with a force that left it dangling in front of his eyes. Its end, the single link broken by a jagged edge, rocked back and forth like a pendulum.

The steady, cyclical motions stilled his breathing into reedy rasps. His stomach, though leaden with bricks of food, ceased its aching.

The chain's movements settled, leaving the dull silver links in a straight line which bisected the crimson spots that had burned themselves into his retinae. The spots receded past the chain, past the stalks of grass, the black trunks of the trees, and pressed themselves up against the dimming horizon. It was there that they coalesced into one, fading into a single star which glinted on the dark blue canvas of dusk.

He blinked, and then it was gone.

He heard gentle rustling from beside him, and he wasn't sure if he was ready to face the source of it after what he'd seen.

"Dreams again?" Sera prodded cautiously.

He practically drank in the sound of her voice, the crispness and bluntness of it utterly unlike the queerly monotone words that the pale dream-image of her spouted to him.

"Yes," he croaked, phlegm congealing his words. He coughed and retched it away into the grass. Feeling returned to his fingers, and he dug them into the ground, grasping at straws of grass as he inhaled mouthfuls of frigid air. "It's the second time I've had it now."

She walked around to his front, her footsteps ever so gentle and giving him a wide berth. Though if she held any disgust for him in this pitiful state, she did not show it, green eyes glimmering with nothing but concern.

Her gaze inevitably wandered to the same spot his was still fixed on, the chain which dangled in front of his face.

"I found it after the first dream," he murmured. "I saw it. Floating in the sea. And I could hear whispers from something else out there too. Like it was some sort of strange chant, carried on the wind."

"Like it was calling to you?"

He shook his head, finally managing to take his eyes off the chain. He let his hand fall limp, and the links of metal thumped softly against the grass. "No. No, I don't think so."

He paused, and stared straight into the horizon again, watching as tiny dots of light began to speckle the darkening sky. The one which he saw upon awakening was yet nowhere to be found.

"I went to the shore that night. I reached into the water, blindly. I don't know what it was that drove me, that… showed me where this thing was. But it wasn't those voices."

"But… there was something else? Some _one_ else?"

"Yes. There was."

His brows furrowed as he remembered the disembodied voice from the first dream, and the witch-image that visited him in the dream he just had.

"In both dreams," he whispered, the certainty he spoke with doing nothing to comfort him.

He stiffened as Sera inched closer, her lithe hand elegantly, slowly reaching out- towards him. His breath caught in his throat as her fingers brushed against his. The sensation didn't last nearly as long as he'd wanted, deep down, as much as he tried to deny it- her hand retracted quickly, carrying with it the tail end of that accursed chain.

He wondered if she felt the same cold that he did holding it.

It wasn't an impossibility- the expression she bore was heavy with trepidation, eyes wide and shining with what seemed to be both fear _and_ curiosity. He supposed that second part was where she and him differed.

Her hands, delicate as they were, grasped the metal firmly and unwaveringly. She did not flinch from its otherworldliness. Did not shun it. Did not bend to it.

The links jingled with a chime that rang with a sinister undertone to his ears as she ran a finger down the length of the metal. He felt his spine resonating with the reverberations.

" _And we would have no purpose."_

…

"I think you should come with me," she stated suddenly, gently easing the chain back into his hands. He couldn't offer any response other than merely stare back at her, her beautiful lips spouting words that were going over his head. All that seemed to register was what she just said earlier- words that sounded too good to be true. Though one part of her speech snapped him out of his trance. "There's… a good chance that you've caught the attention of the Daedra. Which might not be a bad thing. If we can figure out what they want with you."

"Daedra?" He repeated hoarsely. Just saying the word left an uneasiness lingering on his tongue. Or maybe that was just the leftover taste of charred crab.

It took a moment longer to realize that it wasn't the first time he'd heard it spoken before.

Words passed around the mines in Markarth had said that the mysterious hooded man in the city- the Vigilant- been looking for something. Looking for Daedra.

And it wasn't too long ago that he caught wind of the Hall of the Vigilants being burned down.

It seemed like a terrible coincidence in a string of very strange happenings he'd been experiencing as of late.

Had it been anyone else telling him that such things- whatever they were- were interfering with his life…

He probably would have just put his head down, slept, and prayed to gods which cared not for him that it would just be over.

But it wasn't just anyone telling him about it- so he listened carefully, and opted to keep his mouth shut.

Sera appeared to catch onto his ignorance of the matter, perhaps from the blank stare he fixed her with, and mercifully spared him from a lengthy explanation. "Let's just say, it sounds like some very powerful beings are interested in you. Which ones, and why, well, I'm not sure if I can say for certain right now. But I know… people who can help."

He wanted to just say yes. Gods only knew how much he needed this woman in his life, and here she was offering to take him along with her suddenly. It was, for all intents and purposes, as he'd hoped ever since she walked in through the inn's door the night prior.

"What kind of people?"

It was not blind suspicion which drove him to question her. It was that smallest glimpse of sadness he caught as she trailed off, the muted somberness in her voice, the shadows of her dark eyelashes ever so slightly cresting over her irises.

She hesitated- fully breaking away from his piercing gaze now. His heart sunk for her even as he tried to keep it aloft on his own turn of good fortune. She was so willing to give concern, but dared not ask for any in return.

"My family. They own a castle just off the shore of Solitude."

"A castle?"

"Yes. Yes. Cedric, I'm…"

Memories from their talk over the campfire last night bubbled over his surprise at the revelation that she was _royalty_ \- just about the farthest cry from his feeble existence in the world. For once, he stifled his ragged pride, the soiled humility within him which urged him to keep quiet in the presence of someone so far beyond him. He forgot the coldness of the chain which bafflingly still lingered on his chest like a fresh scar, the utter incomprehensibility of his situation.

Slowly, he pushed himself off the ground, bringing himself, sitting, up to her height. He dared to bring his head in closer, lower, peer under her hood. She was not bothered by the intrusion, but seemed so bizarrely shamed- by what, he wasn't even sure- that she could not meet his gaze.

"Well, I suppose you certainly look the part of a princess."

He was rewarded with seeing her eyes light up in surprise. Darting back over to him- and in complete disregard for the disparity between them, beaming with a surge of delight.

"Is that so?"

The sudden shift in her demeanor caught him off guard, but it was with equal parts embarrassment and shameless _happiness_ that he ended up grinning ear-to-ear back at her. "Of course."

She did look away again, but the smile on her lips lingered for a moment. He supposed that was the best reaction he could've gotten- and he was more than content with it.

They sat in silence for a while longer, as darkness enveloped the sky in a deep black canvas that truly let the stars shine. Her skin stood staunchly white out in the pale light of two moons. He found his breathing easing up as he almost lost himself in staring at the blemishless surface of it alone, the eeriness left lingering in his mind from the dream he awoke from muting itself.

"There's a lot more to all of this I can't say yet, Cedric. But I promise you this: I can help you. I just need you to-"

"It's alright. I trust you."

Her smile glimmered like radiant silver to his eyes. To think that his words could bring her some measure of contentness, bafflingly, eased the burdens on his mind even more than hearing she was willing to take him along with her.

A part of him bitterly noted it was about the only thing he _could_ do for her in return- another part took a boyish pride in it. He decided he would rather listen to that latter part. It made forgetting everything else for the time being easier.

 **0-0-0**

 **Imma let you guys in on a secret, I really don't like Cedric**

 **Or not really so much him as much as writing from his perspective**

 **fuqboiiiiiiiiiiiiiii**


	8. Chapter 7

_This isn't going to work._

It was a grim thought that crossed Serana's mind. Maybe it was the direness behind it that made it seem so certain, and not merely a possibility conjured up by restless musings.

A gentle breeze swept past her face, pricking softly at the deadened nerves along her skin.

Though she supposed some people found certainty in things even vaguer than that. The Elder Scroll she bore in the wooden cask on her back attested to that much.

It was with that bitter observation that her eyes swept over to the horizon, where the sea reached up to touch the star-speckled sky. Where the spires of the old castle yet lay shrouded in shadows.

Though she could not see it amongst the silhouettes of glaciers, standing imposingly on the inky surface of the distant water, she knew it was out there. Her hand absentmindedly slipped into the satchel she kept concealed with in her robes, fingers tumbling over emptied flasks and barren twigs. They did not stop until they found the bloodied gold crest buried deep inside. A metal icon she had immediately recognized when she'd seen it on the corpse at the barren site of her reawakening- the same eight-pointed star adorning her own royal garments.

The Volkihar name still lived.

And if the craven bastards that woke her up were the kind to brazenly tout its crest around and prey on mortals in open daylight, that didn't leave her guessing who sat on the family castle's throne. Her hand recoiled from her satchel. Lush blooms of Deathbell brushed crisply against her knuckles on the way out. It was somehow still more pleasant than having to grasp the soiled symbol of her family any longer.

It was telling that she had mourned more for the fallen mortals outside her tomb than she did for the bodies that bore the sigil of her kin.

 _Then why even go back home at all?_

She sped up her trudging pace over the moonlit gravel of the shore, the small surge of anger from within her chest further powering her strides.

Anger at what, or who, she wasn't even sure of. She supposed that was reason as any to return. One of the many things she'd been taught so long ago was to never let something as powerful as anger simply fester.

…

She couldn't remember if it was Father or Mother who'd said that.

…

Though perhaps the answer for the question- 'why go back' - now also partially laid with the pair of stumbling footsteps behind her.

 _This isn't going to work._

She craned her neck back, not breaking in her stride, peering around the dark edges of her hood to study the downtrodden mortal crea- _man-_ which followed her. 'Cedric'.

Messy black hair obscured his eyes, but she could tell that his gaze was downcast, small mouth and pointed chin barely tucked inside in the furs of his coat. Thin wisps of vapor blew out from under his collar, the exertions he made in trying to keep up with her all too evident.

She slowed her stride somewhat, half in thought, half out of the desire to stop the discomfort welling inside her from just seeing the man struggle. A cringe slipped past her stony set lips momentarily as she watched him stumble over a branch of driftwood in the dark. He didn't look up, and scrambled to put himself back into his plodding march, but the quiet yelp he'd puffed out upon tripping made the attempt to hide his blunder moot.

 _Why do you hide your weakness?_

The question never did leave her mouth. A nagging feeling at the back of her head told her it would just make things worse, if anything else.

Her pace slowed to a casual stroll, the coursing urgency in her legs fighting against the restraint she put into every step made towards letting Cedric catch up. She tugged the tired edges of her mouth into a hesitant smile when he finally met her gaze, the gesture this time around being more to just put him at ease than borne of any joy. Too much was on her mind now for that.

"How're you holding up? My cooking isn't getting the better of you, is it?"

It was small relief to see him huff out a laugh, icy blue eyes coming dimly alight with some life as he settled into a comfortable walk beside her.

"No, no, not at all. I'm very grateful for it."

"Mm. That's good."

Cedric seemed to be making a conscious effort to stand straighter now, the crest of his messy black hair almost coming up to her forehead at his full height. His face, normally so gaunt and perpetually frowning, had relaxed into a boyish visage that actually looked quite sharp in the moonlight. Some curious splotches of color had even seemed to bleed into his cheeks, warming the sickly white of his skin.

His voice remained silent, but she was glad that he seemed a good deal more comfortable now at least. The pace she'd set must've been more taxing on him than she'd thought. She fought a back a grimace. Loathe as she was to admit it, she really had grown out of touch with the hardships of being mortal.

She tried not to watch him too intently, lest he find her gaze unsettling- or worse yet, see the true colors behind her eyes. The reminder of that being a very real possibility made the smile she wore seem that much heavier to hold up.

But she didn't let it deter her.

She drew in a deep breath, numbed nerves barely able to appreciate the chilling night air, the cold moistness lingering over the barren expanse of the shore.

"I used to love walking along the shore like this," the sudden yearning she had for feeling the rush of crispness into her lungs slipping past the tense restraints that she'd seemed to clamp down on her mind and body alike.

"Oh."

His eyes bore the shade of the shallows between her and the deep blue sea. Pale, faintly glistening, curiously rapt with attention at her sudden remark. She realized after a moment more of silent staring that he was waiting for her to continue.

"Most nights I'd go out further. Just a little into the water, where the tide would barely touch against the shore. Boots off a little further inland, so they wouldn't get soaked through when I went back home."

Her toes, stiff with undeath, flexed longingly inside their cold confines. She inhaled a mouthful of tasteless vapor, letting her memories guide her feelings. The taste of salt on her tongue, tarnished by blood but warm with nostalgia.

"That feeling of the edges of the sea against the bare soles of my feet- brushing against them, enveloping them in ice. And to think that was just the periphery of it- distant roars roiling all along the coast like a great beast, the rest of its body shrouded in the night. It was terrifying."

"…terrifying?"

She chuckled, partly at her younger self. "Yeah. Seems a bit strange, doesn't it?"

"That you say you used to love that feeling, a little," he responded with a wide grin. His teeth were faintly stained, but that did little to snuff out the warmth in the gesture.

"Maybe it wasn't so much the terror itself," she mused wistfully. Her boot picked up a small flat stone, sending it skipping across the slick beach. She could almost imagine it sending ripples across the surface of the water instead. "As much as… overcoming it. There was always something mysterious about the sea to me, something that kept drawing me back. It was intimidating. Monstrous, cold, dark. It took me a while, but I came to realize there was a stark beauty to it all."

"Ah. I can relate to that I think."

Oh. Right. The dreams.

She tilted her head quizzically at him when she noticed his smile wasn't fading as she'd expected it to, with her very much unintentional reminder of his current predicament. It was admirable that he could manage that. She wished she could do the same.

"You wanna try going for a dip in the water then?" She asked, a spark of mischief breaking through the monotonous grimness looming over her thoughts.

"Only if you'd like to join me. My lady."

' _My lady.'_ There was a moment of silence which followed that bizarre statement he made, for her, memories she'd thought long lost of her handmaiden sparking back into mind, for him, his grin withering into a sheepish smile as the color in his cheeks deepened into a healthy red.

She didn't know why, but eventually the words lit up a chuckle in her chest. A hearty snicker which only grew in intensity the more it pounded on her bones. It spread over to Cedric like a plague.

Their shared laughter resonated on the still night air. Brief as it was, the release of that tension building inside her was welcome. Cathartic, almost.

…

 _This isn't going to work._

No, maybe it wouldn't work. But she couldn't just leave him either.

…

He was… different. In some small ways maybe she saw a little of herself in him. Maybe that was why she'd let herself speak of the past to him. Maybe it was why he said he trusted her in return.

 _Then tell him the truth._

She looked again to the ocean horizon, past the mirages of days long gone shimmering in the ripples, past the dim orange lights pockmarking the shadowy arch standing over the water. The looming shadow of Solitude's windmill seemed to grow larger with every step she took, the great structure standing taller than she remembered against the starry night sky.

They weren't far now. She wagered they could arrive as early as noon on the morrow, if the marshes inland were as peaceful as she'd last went in the day before.

 _I can't._

…

Not yet.

She knew she couldn't hideit from him forever- he'd almost caught her as it was yesterday when the sun had hit her. When the hunger she'd staved off for too long, far longer even than she'd been schooled to, had come surging back in a burning, sanguine sear. And though he did not seem to truly catch on, she had felt the sudden shift in his demeanor- the tentative steps he crawled towards her with, the frozen fear radiating from his wide blue eyes.

It was always the nature of mortals to fear her. That hadn't changed since she'd been asleep. The corpses of those she'd found outside her tomb, dead frosted fingers clutching weapons etched with runes most hateful to her flesh, were a testament to that sad reality.

She pulled the edges of her robes tighter around her body, dipping her chin into the folds of the obscuring black cloth around her neck. There was no warmth to be found for her numb skin anymore, and if anything the cold was more soothing - but fleeting memories of that feeling yet brought some small comfort to her.

Sooner or later, she would have to tell Cedric, if she intended to follow through with her promise to help him. Gods only knew she would rather face down her father alone than say it, but she wasn't taking him along for her own benefit.

She couldn't bear to so much as look at him for the rest of the night.


	9. Chapter 8

The passing of night into day did not help to ease her mind. Although the initial chain of thoughts which put her into this foul mood had evaporated, the grim feelings they left behind yet hung over her like the clots of mist on the stale water they trudged through. Serana bit back a curse as her ears registered the sound of Cedric's waterlogged boots sloshing in the mire behind her.

The tide had not been kind to the footpaths that wound through the coastal marsh.

Tiny ripples that came not from her own nor Cedric's footfalls spattered against the murky surface of the water. A few pinpricks of cold droplets smacked against her face, just strong enough to register on the numbed skin of her cheeks. _Beautiful_. It was fucking raining now too.

She glanced back at Cedric, memories of the previous morning coming to mind as a wayward strand of her thoughts managed to recognize that he'd not eaten since. His hair dangled in front of his face in moist clumps of black locks, the light downpour of rain already setting its shallow claws on his figure. The dim blue eyes behind them looked up at her quietly.

"Hungry?" She called out softly over the din of splashing water. She did her best to fight back a grimace as he nodded.

She craned her neck back around in line with her body, not slowing in her stride through the ankle-deep water as she surveyed their surroundings. Finding another mudcrab could be tricky- unless she was lucky enough to literally trip over one, she'd have to scour the banks of mud underneath the rippling murk for any sign of them. Either that, or double back closer towards shore where they'd be more visible.

Neither option seemed appealing- or feasible, given her intended timetable. But finding somewhere dry to leave Cedric first took priority regardless of what she went with.

It so happened that her keen eyes spotted a platform of man-shaped planks sitting on the water, just a few dozen strides ahead. The wood was a sturdy tan shade amongst the blurs of browns and greys of the marsh, a stout pine tree standing close to it on a small mound of mud. It could be just what they needed.

As she angled her path towards it however, she noticed the water splashing higher against the skirt of her robes. She looked down, and found indeed that it had risen up to her ankles, loosely tugging at the thick black cloth.

She held up a hand, open palm facing Cedric behind her in a gesture to keep him from coming closer. The splash of his footsteps slowed to a stop a comfortable distance away from her.

"I'm gonna go check out that platform over there," she called out, still keeping her eyes trained on her surroundings. Taking note of the sparse tree coverage, the significant distance between her and their black trunks signalling where the land rose out of water. Too far for her liking. She wasn't sure how long Cedric could last trudging through the water while hungry- though it hardly registered with her now, memories from long ago reminded her of just how cold it could still be in Hjaalmarch. They'd have to take their chances with this platform. "Water's a little deep on approach, so stay back until I can figure out a path."

"Oh… alright. Be safe, yeah?"

She nodded, though she wasn't sure if he could see her do so. Her own safety wasn't exactly at the forefront of her mind though, as her boots kicked up clouds of mud that swam around the hem of her skirt. She found herself silently thanking her mother for leaving her with a fairly sturdy set of travelling robes- the royal red cloth of her garments underneath would be spared from the brunt of the mire for now. It was a shame that the same could not be said for her boots. She could feel the grime of the swamp slowly pooling under and around her feet, wet debris chafing against her toes.

It was but a small discomfort, but given the circumstances, any discomfort was incredibly unwelcome.

She kept her eyes downwards, trying her best to discern footing from pitfall beyond the muddled reflection of herself and the overcast skies. Her feet probed the waters in front of her steadily and slowly, the faintly moist ends of her toes inside her boots sensing for what her eyes could not see.

It wasn't as bad as she'd thought. She looked up after a slow minute or two of waddling, the platform she had her eyes on now more clearly propped up on a very slight incline rising out of the water. Strands of drowned and muddied grass poked out from underneath its subtly curved surface. Her head tilted as she got a better look at the structure, the rounded cavity of what was now registering to her as a ship hull's porthole coming into view amongst the wet cracks etched into the wood.

Must have been quite the tide for it to have washed up here. Whatever wreckage it might've come from was nowhere in sight.

She made it past the final few steps between her and the mud it sat upon without incident, her skirt trailing rivulets of brackish liquid onto the platform as she hoisted herself up on her right leg. Cautious as ever though, she gave the wood a few firm taps with her boots, listening to the creaks that ran up and down the striated fibres beyond the thudding impacts.

Sturdy. She supposed it would have had to been to be part of a ship.

She wasn't sure if it was the fatigue getting to her, or the fucking dreary weather, but there was something else… off, about it, that she wasn't quite as certain about. She held off from signalling Cedric over, loathe as she was to leave him soaking in the swamp for longer like a flaccid washcloth.

Her eyes scanned the cracks in the wood, ugly and twisted, but not threatening to break the entire structure apart. She followed them up towards the rim of the porthole, and it was only then that she saw that the porthole in question rung itself around a slope which wound deeper under the planks she stood on, deep enough to be shrouded in shadow.

A cold lump registered in her stomach, a sure sign that her body was trying to warn her sluggish mind against tarrying. But her mind, ever so inquisitive, compelled her to investigate further. Her feet anchored her down from moving any closer though, and so it was that her eyes narrowed to peer closer at the porthole.

The edges of the wood were calloused. Small rents were carved into the otherwise smooth frame, cutting too deeply to be wrought by any storm.

And then she heard a _chittering_ sound from beneath her.

 _Oh shit._

The clacking tapped upon the taut senses in her ears, muffled as it was by the wood between her and its source. Slowly, she eased her left boot back, wincing at the creaks it sent rumbling through as the clambering of chitin drew closer to the porthole.

It was good that she splashed back into the water when she did, steely nerves overriding her sense for delicacy and driving her dead muscles in a frantic retreat. The wood she stood upon moments ago lurched upwards as a pair of wicked black mandibles, thick as her arms and serrated like a dremora's blade, ripped through, hungrily gnawing at splinters which were _melting_ in a soup of inky fluid.

"Sera!"

"Stay back!" Serana called out to Cedric as she hastily backpedaled. Her boots sloshed loudly through the water, the uneven mud tugging at her heels with every step. She rolled her arms in slow, graceful motions in stark contrast to her legs, letting centuries of latent magicka course through to her fingertips. This clearly wasn't just any mudcrab she could handle with a dagger.

A sharp crack rang across the water like a peal of thunder as the creature in question forced its head through the opening it had torn for itself. Beady blue eyes twinkled in the steadying drizzle of rain as it strained to pull the rest of its body out against the creaking ship hull that rung around its neck.

It was with a pang of disgust that she managed to match the creature's four-legged profile with something she'd seen in a bestiary from studies long ago, the chaurus breaking free of its wooden binds in a grotesque display of skittering legs and convulsing chitin. Its fat tail trailed out sluggishly, the pincers at its end dragging pieces of sundered wood along with it.

She starkly remembered the artist's illustrations from the book, as though it were etched into pristine parchment- the repugnance that it had inspired in her as a child was nothing compared to the gut-twisting abhorrence welling in her now. The chaurus stood almost as tall and wide as a cavalry horse, minute motions in its flesh rippling across the slick surface of its armored hide.

The currents of magickal power within her arms reached a crescendo, manifesting as a ball of arcing electricity in her palm- yet she held off from striking the creature, also slowing her retreat into a quiet glide over the mud.

A small part of her mind tempered the revulsion lighting the ends of her skin on fire with a puzzling sense of wonderment as she watched it idle upon its perch for a moment, the luminescent orbs that were its eyes seeming to be lost in scanning the mire around it. A thick neck held its head high, segmented plates heaving as it held a posture that could have almost come off as noble had it been any other creature.

The words that she could recall reading about chaurus had said that they dwelled in only the deepest and darkest of underground recesses. She reckoned the hole that it had crawled out of couldn't have been any deeper than a coffin's resting place. And the marks on the chunk of derelict ship hull seemed to suggest that this particular specimen had purposely dragged the wood over its shallow lair with those wicked pincers.

Had it been stranded in the marsh somehow?

A hoarse scream pierced the moist air after a tense moment of silence, the churning sound of thrashing limbs in water behind her following quickly in suit.

Panic flared in her chest at the noise, the voice, shrill and twisted by fear as it was undoubtedly that of Cedric. She couldn't tell without looking back if he'd somehow been attacked or simply overcome with terror at the sight before him. Yet she did not dare look away from the chaurus when its eerie blue gaze snapped towards her, its mandibles rattling together in a dangerous cacophony that seemed to reverberate through her bones. Black liquid dripped out of its mouth, the droplets that fell onto the wood at the base of its pointed legs eating through fibre with worrying ease.

The text had also said that a chaurus could launch a dangerous fluid from its mouth- but could only postulate whether it was venomous or corrosive. She supposed the melting wood beneath the creature certainly supported the latter. Serana wasn't keen on testing if the former part of the theory also happened to be true.

She couldn't gamble on her abilities to swiftly dodge any such attack in the restraining mire that her feet and robes were anchored in. Neither did she hold out any hope for retreating peacefully anymore.

The surge of thoughts zipped through her dreary mind in a matter of fractions of a second, threatening to send her body back into a gravelike rigor.

One stood out from the murky flood that churned through her mind, dire enough for her to snap to a firm decision.

Cedric's safety had to take precedence.

She dared to glance behind her only after she sent the chaurus staggering to the ground with a vicious lance of conjured lightning. Time seemed to move at a crawl as her overdriving senses took in the situation faster than she could even move. The chaurus loosed a warbling cry that echoed across the water, the unsettling agony laced into its tones joined by a high-pitched clambering of chitin as its legs scrabbled feebly for purchase on its platform.

Her mind put a bookmark on the warped rent that her attack had burned into the carapace between its eyes, the smoldering surface crawling past her eyes as her head continued its backwards pivot.

To her relief, she saw that Cedric was unharmed, still propped on his elbows after having stumbled in the mire beneath him.

With his safety assured, she turned back to the chaurus, its jagged legs quivering as they dug into the wood, trying to lift the bloated body they were tethered to back into the air. Her keen eyes managed to discern ashen smoke streaming out from one of the joints, the distinct smell of charred flesh lightly touching upon her nostrils.

Black acid streamed flaccidly out from between its mandibles, pooling beneath it like blood. Its glossy blue eyes betrayed none of the torment that the rest of its figure was wracked with, glaring emptily at her and the magickal crystals of ice now swirling into existence in her palm.

She didn't hesitate in striking it this time. A spear of ice shot out from her outstretched hand, slicing through the falling rain and piercing through the weakened armor on the chaurus' head with a sharp crack.

Her limbs slackened and fell to her sides, tension rushing out of her body in tandem with the creature's body limply collapsing on the driftwood. Swampwater mixed with the acid from its mouth in inky swirls that faintly reminded her of eerie paintings in her mother's study.

The light faded from the chaurus' eyes, and its pained wails finally gave way to the pitter-patter of rain falling on still carapace.

 **0-0-0**

It had been hiding a clutch of eggs under the ship hull. She'd caught sight of them through the holes burned and torn through the ravaged wood planks, glowing with the same pale blue luminescence that had come from their dead guardian's eyes.

Now they fizzled over a fire, cooking on a grisly plate of chitin she'd wrested off the chaurus.

Her father taught her to make use of as much as she could of a creature after a kill. For her to have just left the eggs there, most likely to die without shelter or an overseer, would have been… wasteful. Disrespectfully so. Something about it still sat bitterly with Serana though, and it didn't have anything to do with the fact that she'd probably never hear her father say anything about 'respect' again.

Absentmindedly, she prodded at the things with a dry branch, the thin membrane around them faintly browning. The aromas it gave off weren't entirely unpleasant.

…

She'd done as much as she could for whatever she couldn't salvage from the chaurus' corpse. The bestiary she could so clearly remember reading warned against consuming its sickly yellow flesh- and though they said nothing for the white meat of its belly, she hadn't been willing to test its edibility. The thin, translucent film that still seemed to pulse against its flesh certainly hadn't helped convince her otherwise.

So she'd burned it. Cremated it atop the wooden planks, the blaze she had lit flaring with an intensity that had even given her some pause, despite the rainfall. She supposed it had brought her back to the paralyzing fear she used to feel when first learning to harness fire, when the lashing tongues of orange would uncontrollably turn on her undead flesh and come close enough to cast stinging embers on her skin.

It was a far cry from the flickering little flame in front of her and Cedric.

Serana glanced up at the man, his head hunched over in a miserable drench of rainwater and mud. They hadn't said anything to each other on the long trek away from the chaurus' nest to the tree they squatted under now.

On his part, she could only guess why. But given his utterly forlorn posture, she imagined he must've felt shameful over- what? Getting some exotic, if admittedly repulsive, creature killed? Caking himself in cold mud? Scaring the shit out of her?

 _He should. For all those things._

She did her best to hide the unexpected frustration that had suddenly flared in her like a burgeoning inferno, tried to present the same gentle, ever-patient porcelain mask on her face to him. But clamming those feelings up inside of her, heaving against the walls of her body like the blue yolks of those eggs bulging against the caramelized membranes that held them in, only served to make hiding them more difficult. She didn't have to look into a mirror to know that her lips, usually wearing an inviting smile, now bore a stony frown that yearned to twist into a snarl.

 _This isn't going to work,_ the thought rang again in her head.

…

She should've said something to him. Anything, just to get her mind off of things. Get _his_ mind off things. It didn't even have to come down to expressing the disappointment she felt with him- or with _herself_ for thinking it would be so easy to take a feeble mortal under her wing.

Serana sighed, that simple expulsion of air seeming to be the last crack in the dam needed for it to burst.

It wasn't about Cedric at all. She couldn't bring herself to truly be angry with someone she'd only known for a few days, after all.

It always came back to her. Her fault for not backing off of that hellnest when she'd already known something wasn't quite right, her fault for not having the forethought to forage some more food for the rest of the journey, her fault for not keeping a closer eye on Cedric, her fault for needlessly butchering a fascinatingcreature that had been stranded on the surface, her fault for not stepping in between her parents when everything had gone to shit.

It took a moment to realize that the salty streak of water running down her cheek wasn't from the rain.

She made no motion to wipe away the tear. Even as another joined it in running down the crusty trail blazed by the first. She wasn't sure if she could hold it back if she spent another moment acknowledging the fact that she was on the verge of crying.

She inhaled shakily, the scents of burning wood and sizzling yolks amongst the rain and seawater flooding her reinvigorated senses in an intoxicating melange. Maybe there was still some human left in her after all.

…

Maybe it was her fault, maybe it wasn't. But this was her chance to make it all right- help Cedric out, set the record straight with her father. Find her mother. Gods only knew how it would all end, but she had to fucking _try_ for once.

One of the eggs popped, sizzling blue fluid spilling onto the searing plate and quickly charring into a pale white. Cedric's ears must've perked up at the sound, either that or the smell of fried yolk was enough to stir up his appetite- she found his pale blue eyes, glossy with moisture, fixating themselves on the fire.

She supposed that was a good a sign as any that they were ready.


	10. Chapter 9

The rain had still not let up by the time her soaked boots hit solid dirt again. Fat water droplets slipped from the pines above onto Serana's hood with heavy smacks as she turned her gaze skywards, grimly surveying the dark clouds beyond the needle-laden branches. They seemed to grow denser with every moment, the light of the sun drifting further away.

A small comfort to her perhaps, but even that was soiled by the downpour.

Angling her chin down just slightly, she could see the great windmill in Solitude peeking out between the trees.

A driblet of water smacked onto her brow, leaving behind a spine-chilling impact that could not have registered anywhere else on her skin. She could feel it spreading into the hairs there, breaking, flowing like cold blood.

She wiped it aside with her sleeve hastily. The streaks of dampness in the cloth around her arm that brushed against her cheeks were ignored with a stony indifference.

She turned back to Cedric, his gait having changed little as he stopped only briefly to drag the soles of his mud-soaked boots along the slick slope of a nearby rock. Water mixed with the sludge left behind, streaming down the stone in a sickly brown streaks.

His boots looked no better for wear as he made his way closer, head still angled downwards. The distinct sound of squelching in his footsteps had not subsided even on solid ground.

"We'll have to get you some new boots when we get back home," she mused out loud. Those eyes of his darted up to her, dim and drab, yet just on the cusp of striking- maybe it was just the contrast of the rain and mud, the messy mop of black hair dangling in front of them that made them look so piercing all of a sudden. Where the cold had thawed away from their surroundings, but the crisp blue sheen in his irises yet lingered.

He wouldn't look half bad in a Volkihar coat and vest, she found herself pondering. Maybe with a silver gilding in place of the usual gold. A less saturated red tint in the cloth. Something with just a little more… muted sense of regality. Might just be enough to coax him into standing upright more.

"Some new clothes too." An awkward smile crept over her lips when she found him staring back quietly quite possibly the only thing holding her back from voicing the rest of that train of thought. The image she'd been putting together with an unexpected amount of detail in her head washed away in the rain, leaving behind the scraggly lump of fur and hair that was Cedric in his current, very much less-than regal looking state.

And the blank look in his eyes, cold and distant as the sea, spoke volumes of his lack of care in such matters. He didn't so much as make the effort to fake a smile back at her for once. Though it felt as though something so silly _shouldn't_ have bothered her, it did.

 _He was a slave._

Yet that never stopped him before.

 _He's tired._

He was tired and hungry the last morning as well.

"Come on, maybe we can stop inside the city to find you something before we head out again," she finished weakly, turning around on her heel and resuming their march forwards when it was evident that he was still not yet ready to talk.

Truth be told, she wasn't sure if she was ready either- but the words had come at what seemed a proper enough moment. She'd been wrong, of course. Maybe that was what bothered her more than anything else.

The silence between them weighed heavily on Serana's shoulders, as though the burden of an Elder Scroll wasn't already enough for one. Minutes passed into hours as they hiked through thick groves of pine trees, the lush green needles over their heads offering no respite from the downpour.

Several times she looked back to check up on Cedric, make sure he wasn't teetering on the edge of falling over and slipping down the rain-slick cobblestone slopes they found themselves traversing. Each time she found him plodding onwards with his head hung low.

Soon enough she found her own posture waning, hunching over as the steadying rain pounded on the rim of her hood. The muted smattering of droplets resonated in the indifferent emptiness of her head. One foot in front of the other, that was the only thing she could force herself to focus on.

Distant voices sounded out, muddied in the torrents of water. She barely registered them at first, let alone set aside the effort to try and make out what they were saying. When she realized that they were getting closer with each step though, her senses back snapped back into drenched reality, easing her head up against the rainfall.

She held up a hand behind her, Cedric's splashing footsteps washing out to a halt. That sound had blended so well into the storm that she'd almost forgotten it was there.

…

The sparsity of life around them seemed to have finally tapered off. A great wall stood ahead of them, wrought together from thick trunks of pine wood that stood as indifferently and sturdy as any stone in the face of the rain. But it was what laid to the sides of the road that gave Serana pause.

Dozens of eyes peered at her from beneath tent canvasses, dark rings underlining their irises. Their bodies sat in postures somehow even more pathetic than hers and Cedric's, thin tunics dark with water stains and clinging to their hunched shoulders. One man seemed to stand out from the rest, rain and mud muddying his sharp visage and blurring the face paint smeared around his eyes. He couldn't have been much older than Cedric. And there he sat on a craggy tree stump, cradling a young girl in a threadbare dress, with naught but the shelter of pine needles over their heads.

"This… is this Solitude?" Cedric broke the silence between them with a hoarse whisper.

Her eyes turned skywards, beyond the jagged top of the walls in their way. Spires of stone structures, just as stout and grey as she remembered, laid beyond, perched imposingly on the rocky arch that loomed beyond the mouth of the Karth river. The great windmill towered over them all.

"No. Not yet."

Her attention fell back down to the road before them as she registered a smattering of voices ringing out over the rain, just past the quiet and forlorn mortals which squatted by the side of the road. A group of bodies, looking no better for wear, stood in front of the wall, intently crowded around a single figure clad in darkened leather armor.

"Doesn't seem like these are citizens. Unless it's normal for city guards to keep people out from their own homes nowadays," she mused aloud.

"No. They're not. I recognize some of those facial markings."

"You know them?" She looked back around at him, finding that his gaze had somehow ended up in the ground. Though he buried his chin within the collar of his coat, he could not hide the moistness in his eyes from her.

"No," he managed to murmur, the small effort it took enough to make his voice crack.

 _Shit._ Her expression, which she had not realized until then had set into a stony frown, softened somewhat.

She spared a quick sideways glance to the roadside encampment- she doubted they would be a threat in their current state, but she didn't like the idea of being fixated on by them. She was satisfied to find that most eyes had turned away from them already.

She took a deep breath, and risked a step closer to Cedric. His head shrunk further into his coat, but his body did not shy away. The difference in height between them, though sparse, was only capitalized by his sinking posture. She became distinctly aware of his quickening breaths as she leaned down ever so slightly to meet his downcast eyes, the tensing of his neck muscles even through the ragged fur collar stretched over it.

"Can you say where they came from?" She prodded cautiously, but with a sincere gentleness cushioning her words.

"I… wouldn't know exactly. But some of them look like Reachmen to me."

The people of the Reach was not a culture she'd ever been particularly knowledgeable about- even in her childhood her parents had often dismissed them as barbarians, savages, undeserving of much study. The land itself was something she'd only ever had distant glances at during hunting trips, her view exceedingly sparse with the steep cliffs of rock that enclosed it.

 _So what the hell are they doing outside the gates of Solitude?_

Something clicked in the back of her head as she began re-evaluating Cedric's timid, physical features under a new light- the sharp angles in his face, the litheness of his form – what had stood out to here previously as just odd and vaguely elegant abnormalities starting to register as evidence of interbreeding between man and mer, filtered down through an untold number of generations.

"Sera, I…"

Just like some of the harrowed figures in the camp. Cedric was a Reachman too.

His pale blue eyes were wide with fear. She hadn't realized that she'd been looking so intently at him, her brows furrowed as she'd lost herself in trying to piece together what was going on.

"I'm one of them. A _fugitive_. I was a slave, but I was freed by nobody's will. I- I ran, because there were some of us in the mines who tried to fight back- they would've killed us all, but I couldn't fight, I didn't want to," he rambled. The jumble of words he spewed came in a shivering torrent that was barely audible over the rain, the only reason why she didn't make to more hastily quiet him down.

She eased her left hand forwards, in a gentle, placating motion, her tongue sluggish as she tried to process the influx of information. She didn't expect Cedric to reach out and clasp his own hands around it. There was a gentle nudge in force as he sunk down further, shuddering breaths wracking his body.

"I've been running from it, been trying to just forget it…"

She could feel the tremors in his mortal body, the quiver in his knees as they threatened to give out and drag them both down to the ground. A rhythmic thumping reverberated in the miniscule space between her and Cedric, pounding against the slick skin of her palm over the deluge of rain. Steady, basso _._ Laden with blood. _His_ blood, thin and yet brimming with that intoxicating vigor mortals practically exhumed when under duress. It was his heartbeat.

The raw vibrations awoke something in her. A roaring, searing ache in the still void of her own heart.

She wrested her hand free of his, only to reach around behind him with both hands and pull him close into an embrace. His legs gave out, and he fell against her, muddied flesh smothering her dark robes. Her deadened nostrils were flooded with a musky odor of rain mixed with crusty sweat as she leaned into the nook of his neck, her mouth lingering dangerously close to the collar of his coat.

When she opened her mouth to speak again, the softness of her own voice only made the razor sensation of her teeth grazing against the rigid flesh of her tongue all the more apparent.

"It's okay," she whispered.

Whether those words were meant for him, or for herself, she wasn't sure.

 **0-0-0**

The minutes that passed by were a tense, loaded few for Serana, the nerves under her skin reinvigorated and tracking every pulse, every quiet sob that surged through Cedric's body. She didn't know what to think of it. _Couldn't_ afford to dwell on it any longer, lest the flood of all too mortal sensation swallow her whole.

Still as a statue, she stood there, holding him up until the errant twitches in his body stilled. The pumping of his heart remained ever present, and she was only too eager to sever herself from its drumming tempo as soon as she felt he'd regained enough composure to stand on his own again.

A breath that she'd not realized she'd been holding in blew out from her lips, the heat of it searing over the back of her teeth. She wondered how Cedric must've felt it, grazing against the cold and rain slick surface of his face.

"I know what it feels like, to run from something you think you can't face," she said quietly. Her own words resounded like thunder in the distorting canals of her ears. "I've been running myself for a long time."

He nodded, but never broke his intent gaze from her. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else burning behind the cold blue focus of his irises.

"Believe me when I say you'll never truly be ready to face it again. Even after you recognize it has to be done, even after you commit to it, even when you've turned to stand your ground- there's always going to be something in the back of your mind that holds you back. It's pushing on in spite of it all that makes you strong."

"I'm not strong," he replied, the firmness in his tone of voice standing in an utterly ignorant defiance of the throaty, mucous-laden words he just spoke.

"You don't become strong without pushing through bouts of weakness," she said as she reached out to brush away the viscous drip streaming from his nose. The vile fluid clung to her fingertips. Cedric was no more affected by the gentle motion she'd unexpectedly made than she herself was.

"S _omething_ out there- whether it really is the Daedra or not- saw potential in you. Gods don't just meddle in the affairs of any mere mortal. Whether you believe it or not, there's something inside you that _will_ keep you going through all this."

He blinked, the brief lapse in his gaze seeming to snap him back to reality. He averted his eyes, looking sideways to the gate that stood in their way.

"The way to the castle isn't much further from us," she continued, reassured that she was setting his focus straight again. "I can handle the talking, get us through the camp and the gates. Just follow my lead, and everything will be fine. Okay?"

He nodded. She supposed that was as good a response as she was going to get.


	11. Chapter 10

The smell of the mortals was palpable, nipping at her deadened senses even through the film of moist earth. Their blood surged with vigorous scents of fear and trepidation as she stalked amongst them. A balding man averted his steely grey eyes from her as soon as their gazes inadvertently met. A young woman shuffled her mud and ink smeared face further into the shadows as Serana strode by.

She tried to keep her prying eyes away from people as much as she could, but it was difficult for her to simply ignore the feeling of having dozens watching her. Even in her concealing robes, streaked with mud and rain as much as everyone's clothes around her, they knew something was different about her. She did not doubt that they were unaware of her true nature, just as Cedric was though- if they were not, they would not be so passively avoiding her presence.

A thin hiss slipped out between her gritted teeth as she braced her aching shoulders against the biting strap that tied the cask to her back, only all too aware of the weight bearing down on her.

Peering up from underneath her hood when she could hear the voices near the gate more clearly, she found, with some brief sense of relief, that they had almost made it through the camp without incident. She could only hope that would hold true for passing the gates.

She slowed her brisk pace down to an idle shuffle as she walked into earshot of the cluster of people around the gate, only now at a distance where she noticed the differences in their attire. Whereas those who remained sitting under their tents and what little shelter they could find in the rain behind them were dressed in dirty grey tunics or the tattered remains of what might've been tunics, the ones before her and Cedric now were adorned in finely knit coats, rich tones of greens and browns which were darkened by rain but unsullied by mud.

And judging from the way they spoke to the gate guard, they sported a different attitude to match as well. The words were muddled by the surprising volume of bodies standing before them, but the voices she could discern were pitched high with equal parts desperate urgency and haughty arrogance.

They didn't so much as budge by the time she and Cedric walked up to the back of the congregation.

A grimace worked over her lips as she shuffled to a stop, seeing no easy way through or around the crowd. She supposed they could always try to scale the wooden wall that had been erected, but she didn't exactly feel like pissing off whoever built it.

"Hey," she called out to a man in front of her. When he didn't so much as acknowledge her, she reached out and gently tapped on his shoulder. The sumptuous fabric of his coat was still warm to the touch, even coated in a thin sheen of rain.

The glare that he fixed her with in response, however, was anything but warm. With no cowl or hood to speak of, the rain had soaked into the young man's meticulously braided locks of golden blonde hair, quite unpleasantly tangling it all up. She could only imagine that was but one reason for the scowl etched into his otherwise rather fair face.

"What's going on?" She asked.

"None of your business, _peasant._ Go back to the camp with the rest, and don't ever presume to touch me again."

The man turned away before she could even open her mouth to further elaborate. Frustration bubbled in her veins, but she kept herself from more forcefully trying to get his attention again. It seemed quite clear that he- or _any_ of the backs turned to her, for that matter- had no interest in hearing her out. For the moment, she could only entertain herself with the fact that somebody had called her a peasant.

"These aren't like the rest," whispered Serana back to Cedric, dropping back a little to distance them from the crowd. "You know who they are?"

She watched from the corner of her vision as Cedric's piercing blue eyes scanned upwards, his lips pressing out into a pointed grimace after a few moments. "Not specifically. But I know the look of Markarth nobility."

"Not a fan of them, I take it?"

There was a hardness in his expression she'd not seen before, an edge to his voice not yet heard. "They're either slave owners or family of slave owners. I was less than dirt to these kinds of people."

Considering how the one she'd just spoken to had addressed her, she could certainly believe that.

"I take it the feeling's mutual then?"

A stern nod in response. It was interesting how quickly anger tempered the demeanor of mortals. She might've offered Cedric a smile and pat on the back if not for their current circumstances.

"Doesn't seem like they're keen to leave anytime soon. We're gonna have to make our way through the crowd. Think you can handle that?"

There was a moment's hesitation in Cedric; understandable, seeing how she'd just been playing off his indignancy, validating it, and now telling him to keep it in check. She saw his hands tighten into fists, the delicate skin stretching over bone.

"Yeah."

"Good."

She reached out and took him by the hand, her fingers wrapping around one of his clenched fists. Before he could object, she tugged him along behind her, only all too eagerly pushing past the foul-faced young man who she'd spoken to prior. It was a firm, not excessive force that she brushed by him with, but he stumbled aside as though he'd been struck by a charging cavalry horse. "Sorry. Just passing through," Serana called out, a hint of smugness managing to worm its way into her words under the falsely sweet apology.

A ripple of reaction travelled through the crowd as she and Cedric started plowing through it, cries of shock and surprise giving way to indignant shouts of only increasing intensity with every nobleman and woman they barged past. The surge of blood in each body she brushed against flowed hotter than the last, but none seemed to eclipse the thumping pulse of Cedric's heart, travelling through his hands to her.

Bizarrely, she found herself having to suppress the sharp-toothed grin threatening to claw its way past the rigid muscles in her jaw. It almost felt as though the rising thirst in the back of her throat channeled her movements- and she didn't give a damn at all about pushing a little harder past each person standing in her way.

"Enough! What's going here?"

The voice cut through the crowd like a honed blade through cloth, momentarily silencing all the errant voices which were bellowing out at her. She didn't stop, even as the chaotic movements around her slowed- if anything, she only redoubled her efforts, tightening her grip on Cedric and pushing harder to get through the crowd during the lull.

It didn't last.

"What the fuck are you just standing around for? Do something!"

"Quiet! All of you disperse!"

"To Oblivion with you! We're not going anywhere until we hear back from the general!"

Just as the clamoring threatened to bubble up again, Serana managed to push herself and Cedric up to the forefront. Nonchalantly, acting as though the gate guard wasn't glaring steely daggers at her, she brushed a few errant strands of hair out of her eyes from under her hood and thinned the toothy grin plastered on her face into a soft smile.

"Hi."

"' _Hi'?_ That's all you have to say for yourself, you little bitch?" Spat the man standing next to the guard. His stony Nordic features were creased into a sneer, the snarls clashing with what could've been a well groomed and comely face. "Barging through like this-" His expression only grew darker when he caught sight of Cedric behind her. "-and with some goatfucking Reachman in tow, no less."

She felt Cedric's fist tightening in her grip. She gave him a light squeeze back, hoping it would be enough to settle him down. The smile dropped off her lips, along with any pretense of being civil.

"Leave him out of this. We're just passing through."

"Oh just _passing through_ now, are we? And that somehow takes precedence over the concerns of the Jarl of Markarth's court, does it?"

"If the Jarl of Markarth's court is concerned with blocking off the whole damn road for the entire day, then yes."

The man took a step forward, hands which didn't look like they'd ever lifted anything heavier than a book as of late balling up into fists of his own.

Serana flexed her fingers, a disturbing rush of anticipation surging through her dead veins.

Before the situation could spiral out of hand, however, the gate guard stepped in. The metallic scrape of a blade being unsheathed rang out over the rain, the shrill sound seeming to be enough to freeze the offending nobleman in place. "Thonar. I won't tolerate you carrying out blatant assault on a citizen. And as far as _I'm_ concerned, she has a point. You're hindering Imperial operations in processing Solitude citizens and traders."

The nobleman, apparently named Thonar, scoffed. He didn't bother to even look at the guard directly. "So that's how it's going to be then?"

"I have told you already, General Tullius is well aware of the Forsworn situation in the Reach. I have no word from him or anyone else yet on whether we can commit our forces to taking it back. You're wasting your efforts barking at me."

"Yes, of course. What else could be expected from the _Empire?_ You, who abandoned us the last time we called for aid against the Forsworn savages."

"That was different," the guard replied, voice just hovering above a snarl of his own. "Need I remind you that the Legion had to fight for its own survival against the Aldmeri Dominion?"

"Yes, do remind me, Hadvar, how did the Legion fare against those wretched elves? They _failed_. The Empire _failed_ the Reach. Can you say the same for the rebellion which you fight against now?"

Silence fell over the road, pregnant with the sound of the ever-ongoing rain splattering against cobblestone.

She glanced between Thonar and the guard, Hadvar if she'd heard correctly- though Thonar still had his back turned, both held their steely gazes and stone set lips as though they were directly staring each other down. Cedric's heartbeat pulsed against her skin, the sensation drumming on her skull in the stillness. Her palm was slick with a mixture of the rain and his sweat.

She didn't dare loosen her grip on Cedric until Thonar, with nary another word or gesture, strode past them. Only when she heard the myriad of footsteps behind them start splashing away did she let the breath she'd been holding in seethe through gritted teeth.

That just left Hadvar.

Gently, Serana tugged on Cedric's hand, noting with some relief that he had allowed it to relax out of its clenched state- a spark of surprise flicked at her senses mid-stride when she noticed his fingers twining around her own.

Briefly startled, she glanced back around at him beyond the edge of her hood, catching the gaze of those blue eyes. There was an intensity to them she could almost feel smoldering there now, bubbling under the surface of the irises. His mouth had parted as though to say something, but was frozen in place, leaving a delicate little opening with puffs of steam trailing quietly out into the cold air.

"Are you ok?" She whispered gently.

Cedric blinked, and the look in his eyes flickered away. His mouth snapped shut, and he merely gave a nod in response.

"We're almost through this, just hang in there," She murmured, as much to herself as Cedric while she made her final approach towards Hadvar. The gate guard in question still seemed to have his attention set intently further down the road, lips pressed together in a sharp frown that seemed like it could burst into a snarl at any moment. If the rain soaking through his leather armor and the loose strands of brown hair dangling in front of his eyes bothered him, he did not show it- his expression was set like a statue.

"My apologies, citizens," he spoke plainly and rigidly. "You should not have been made to suffer the presence of that wretch."

"Bold way of talking about a nobleman behind his back," replied Serana, an approving smile nonetheless tugging at her lips.

"That man is noble in name only." He sighed, shaking his head as though attempting to shed the grimace etched into his face. It didn't work very well. He looked down at the short sword gripped in his hands, eyes blank of any expression for a solid several seconds of stillness. It took another while for him to sheath the blade again, his arms seeming to move with a deliberate sluggishness, as though he were consciously holding himself back from moving too forcefully.

He fixed them both with a cold gaze, eyes running up and down both of their forms.

"So. What business have you here? You don't look like traders. Or Solitude townsfolk for that matter."

"We're just passing through," repeated Serana.

Hadvar's frown deepened.

"There's nothing beyond Solitude except the coast. Where are you travelling to?"

"Why do you need to know?" She rebuked calmly.

 _Shit._ Hadvar's armor left his arms bare, the muscles in plain sight. Though his tone of voice did not change and he did not make any overtly aggressive motions, she could see him tensing up again already. The skin on his arms stretched taut, running slick with rainwater.

"In case you haven't noticed, the Empire is at war in Skyrim. Enemy scouts and messengers threaten us on all fronts. Smugglers are more active than ever before. Refugees come trailing in from all parts of the province. It's our business to know what the intentions of everyone passing this wall are."

 _What Empire?_

She didn't dare ask that, though the question burned in her mind. Even from just listening to Thonar and Hadvar going at it, she had a wagonful of questions already.

Just exactly how long had she been asleep for?

"So. I'll ask you again, citizen. What business do you have here?"

She looked him the eye, standing just ever so slightly taller than him. It was a dangerous thing to do, with the conjured illusion of her eyes hiding their true nature being something that a particularly keen eye could see through- but from what she could remember, people were often more inclined to believe she was telling the truth when she did that.

…it had worked with Cedric so far, hadn't it?

After another moment of deliberation, she spoke.

"My father's sick," she said calmly, reigning back the vehemence that she yearned so desperately to inject into those words. She let her mind go blank, trying to lose herself in a web of lies and fantasy to escape from the truth she knew she had to face soon enough. The resonance of those lies with the truth was too difficult to shake though. "He has been for… a while. He owns a small fishing shack in the far north. I was born there, lived with him all my life."

A lump weighed in her throat, and her lip quivered.

"The sickness came out of nowhere, hit us like a brick. Shattered our quiet little life. Left him crippled in the head."

She took a breath to steady herself, the shakes running through her body all too real for her comfort.

"I don't know if this will cure him," she said, rolling her shoulders in a fingerless gesture towards the cask slung over her back. "But I have to try."

"And him?" Hadvar asked bluntly, nodding towards Cedric. "What's his business with you?"

The image of Cedric's smoldering blue eyes flared up in her mind, accompanied by the… particularly intense memories she had of his blood. Throbbing, pulsating. Like it was now, their fingers still intertwined.

"He helped me. And I'm returning the favor. He doesn't have anywhere else to go."

"I see," replied Hadvar, but he made no indication that they could pass.

Droplets of water spattered against her hood in muted impacts, drumming on her ears. Raindrops had been collecting on her face for a while now, her senses having been numb to the sensation. She couldn't tell if the wetness she felt trailing down her cheek now had come from her eyes or the rain.

"It's standard procedure for me to search the belongings of whoever passes through here. Would you object to that?"

"…You wouldn't like what you'd find."

It was a subtle movement, but Serana noticed Hadvar's hand inching up towards the blade sheathed at his hip. He stopped halfway through the motion, never breaking eye contact with her.

"You're not making a very good case for yourself, citizen. Smugglers come through here with sad tales more convincing than yours every day. You can either subject to a search or I'll have no choice but to assume the worst and forcibly seize your belongings."

The lump in her throat only grew heavier when those words touched upon her ears, the magicka channeling through her veins almost sickening to her senses.

"I can't do that," she said barely above a whisper, her voice finally losing the momentum which had been powering her onwards over the course of days. Unaware of the threat to him, Hadvar clasped the grip of his sword.

"Don't make me do this," she pleaded in one last attempt, shards of conjured ice beginning to collect in her one free hand, hidden under the sleeve of her robes.

She had to fight the urge to squeeze her eyes shut.

This fucking Elder Scroll. How many people had to die for it?

"Please, no. Don't hurt her," stammered Cedric from behind her. His sudden exclamation, shaky as it was, was enough to stop Hadvar- and in another sense, Serana as well. Surprised, both pairs of eyes turned towards him.

For all the fear and uncertainty in his words, his expression betrayed none of the same. He held Hadvar's gaze with a firm focus, his hand gripping Serana's gently.

"I… swear to you, sir, the only lie she's told is that I helped her. I've done nothing for her, and yet she took me in. She's the kindest soul I've met. She doesn't deserve this."

"That's very charitable of her," replied Hadvar, unmoved by Cedric's profession- if anything just turning back to her with more suspicion.

"It is, sir. It would be immensely cruel if the world were to repay her kindness by denying her the chance of curing her father."

Part of her wanted to scream _what the fuck are you doing_ to Cedric- but a greater part of her recognized that her own plan had already come down in a fiery shipwreck anyways. It couldn't get worse, could it?

"What am I to do then, citizen? Let this woman through on your accounts of her kindness- and run the risk of her feeding the skooma addictions of countless Imperial citizens? I knew a kind woman who lived in Whiterun, once. Last I heard of her, she was arrested for dealing in sleeping tree sap."

Serana could only shake her head. The magickal ice forming in her free hand dissipated, and she brought it up to swipe away the streams of liquid on her face.

"I knew a man who was addicted to skooma once. I knew lots of men and women like that, working in the mines. Enough to know that cutting off one shipment of skooma won't cure anyone. But if you cut off a daughter carrying medicine for her father…"

She looked back at Hadvar after quietly clearing out her eyes, noticing with barely suppressed incredulity that his hard expression had softened with Cedric's last argument. His hand still hovered around his sword, but he seemed far less inclined to use it now.

"I-"

Hadvar held up a hand before she could say anything else.

"Go."

With that, he pivoted on his heel, striding towards the gate. It creaked open on its hinges as his muscled arms pushed them open, then stood to the side, holding the doors open for her and Cedric. His gaze was firmly set on the road.

Tentatively, still slowly overcoming the mess of emotions churning around inside her, Serana led Cedric through the open gate. She pondered bidding the guard- Hadvar- farewell, but her numbed mind couldn't conjure anything that seemed appropriate to say. Perhaps that was for the best. Hadvar seemed quite keen on pretending she simply didn't exist.

 _Fuck._

Subconsciously, she found herself squeezing Cedric's hand in a gesture of thanks as they crossed the threshold. He returned it in kind.


	12. Chapter 11

Rain slicked down the wooden boards of the pier as Cedric trudged along, hand gripped firmly in Sera's grasp. Their footsteps seemed to move in thumping rhythm with his heartbeat.

Guards shuffled along in the periphery of his vision, these ones visibly bearing the city's crest on their shields. They wore the same Nordic chainmail that the guards in Markarth did, their faces hidden behind the same crude iron and leather visages.

He had to hold himself back from instinctually tightening his grip around Sera's hand. Pretend that he didn't feel the chain hidden in his coat constricting around his chest, grasping at scars left behind by lashings and bruises from beatings. Fight the urge to hunch over and drag Sera down with him, to hide his face from the masked tyrants around him.

He and Sera were the only non-uniformed figures that he could see. There were no sailors crowding around the decks of the great ships moored to the pier, no workers hauling around cargo on the walkways, and none of the bustling voices that accompanied them.

They were alone, the only two people in the midst of a guard regiment. He felt as though, surely, they _should've_ stuck out like a sore thumb- that dozens of helmeted gazes should've been tracking their every move.

And yet, with every step they took towards the masses of guards he could see, the further away they patrolled. Disappearing around corners of wooden dock houses, down flights of stairs, and reappearing again at the very edge of his view.

His breathing grew ragged as the sea's waves roiled up high enough to splash onto the boarded walkways around him. The water was inky black, as it had been by the shores in the dead of night.

The drizzle that had hounded them so constantly over the past few days, drenching his clammy skin to the point that he had become numb to it, surged into a torrential rainfall. A gasp caught in his throat as a sheet of water droplets crashed into his face, the cold rivulets dragging through his hair and sinking into his nostrils. Somehow, he managed to remain upright, propelled onwards as though Sera's mere presence was enough to keep him steady.

He brought his free arm up to wipe away the sheen of stinging water clinging to his face, the soaked furs of his sleeves dragging wet streaks down his face.

"Sera," he managed to whisper, without letting the tremble in his body bleed through to his reedy voice. She did not seem to hear him, pulling him along at the same pace as before into the churning shadows ahead.

His bloodshot eyes widened as they registered the walkway ahead splintering apart. Broken boards were flung upwards into the darkness, powdery debris mixing in with the torrents of water that assailed his brow.

He craned his neck up, as though guided by an unseen force. The wall of darkness grew ever closer towards him and Sera, whether because it was moving towards them or because Sera, maddeningly, would not stop in her march forwards, he couldn't tell.

His thoughts froze when he looked up high enough to catch the crest of the monstrous tidal wave before them. He couldn't blink, even as streams of water fell against the glassy surface of his eyes from the encroaching wall. He couldn't pull back, as Sera's iron grasp pulled him along.

Sera.

 _Sera!_

He tried to call out towards her, but the words died in his throat. As though he were drowning already.

The somber roar of the waves finally registered on his deafened ears, twisted by a metallic echo. He could not discern the mumbling words that crashed down around him this time. Perhaps it was because, in that moment of realization, he did not want to.

 **0-0-0**

When he pried his eyes open, globules of what could've been ice or water clinging to his eyelashes, he was met with the sight of a still-crackling campfire. Orange flames danced amongst the waves of color in the night sky, their tongues lapping up at the two moons.

The air was still and silent, but the cold that hit him did so with a clarity and sharpness absent from his dreams.

"Oh. You're up already."

There was a hesitation to Sera's voice as it carried out from behind him, a somber undertone to the ever so darkly sweet sound of her words.

He didn't respond immediately, instead training his eyes on the cold gravel he sat upon. The numbed surface of his palms ran over some pebbles speckling the ground, faintly gleaming with a moist sheen in the firelight.

"Are you okay?" The sound of her boots crunching against the ground rang out over the shallow roar of the sea in the near distance. In the distance. Not tearing down the Solitude docks in a frenzied, _fearful_ fit of wrath, not bellowing with incomprehensible litanies of hate-

"It was a just a dream," he said through a shaky breath, half to himself as he closed his eyes in an attempt to clear his mind. "Just a dream."

The Solitude docks were well behind them now. Although he supposed it had not been the docks themselves that had left him so unsettled in the dream.

He didn't budge as Sera laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, the weight barely registering to him over the tremors coursing through his body.

"Do you need to talk about it?"

He thought back again to the dream-image of Sera, the eerie black robes that had concealed her beauty, the muted indifference that she had marched with, the cold and uncaring iron grip she had around him-

"I'd rather not, actually."

 _Just a dream,_ he repeated mentally.

 **0-0-0**

"Come on. We should get moving. We can make it there before sunrise if we leave now."

Her words shook him from his trance. He blinked once as he slowly pried his eyes away from the firepit, barely a few embers and thin trails of smoke left hovering over the untended ashes now. The hesitation that had gripped him, kept him so fearfully avoiding Sera's gaze had all been forgotten now, replaced by a weary soreness that burned behind his eyes.

He could only imagine how pitiful he must've seemed when he craned his neck around to look at her, his thoughts sluggishly trailing behind his movements. They caught up only when he saw the moonlit paleness of Sera's skin, green eyes brimming with an ethereal clarity that left him finally loosing a breath through the constricting grasp of the chain in his coat.

"We're that close?"

"Yeah." There was a brusqueness to her response that nagged at the back of his mind momentarily, but he reasoned it was likely due to him having wasted valuable time that could've been spent travelling already. A spark of guilt lit up inside him, but with a quiet heave, he crushed it under a newfound resolve to make up for that lost time instead. Stiffness wracked every inch of his limbs, and he made a brief show of stretching himself free of that soreness as Sera wordlessly went about covering up the firepit.

There was an audible crack in one of Cedric's joints as he stretched, loud enough to apparently draw Sera's attention. He flashed her a sheepish grin.

Again, she did not return the smile.

There was no visible exasperation in her posture as she turned back to coating dirt and gravel over the desiccated ashes of their dead campfire, no dismissive roll of the eyes, no stifled laughter, no… _anything_ , that he would've expected-

-from Thera.

Slowly, as though his face were made of sludge, the grin slipped off his chapped lips.

He made a step towards Sera, clearing his throat and meaning to offer help with the cleanup. Before Cedric could even move his legs, she rose from her perch, absentmindedly brushing off her palms on the hem of her robes.

"Ready?"

A trepidation that he couldn't quite place crept into his heart, at the realization of just how close he was now- to what, he wasn't even entirely certain.

"I-"

He trailed off, a part of him wanting to say _something_ , but failing to make sense of what was bothering him so.

He thought back to that one night just scant days ago, sitting next to her, listening to her sweet voice drawl on about the days she went hunting, bringing more warmth to his veins than the campfire that had been in front of them. The soft yet firm grasp of her hand around his as she led him through the crowds around Solitude.

"This won't change anything between us, will it?"

For a moment after he said them, he thought to retract those words, almost certain that the vagueness of his question – which he wished he hadn't just blurted out all of a sudden- would leave her more puzzled than anything. Her actual response was far more concerning.

"I don't know," she said, her eyes disappearing under her hood as she looked down. "I hope it won't. I really do. But…"

"But what?" His heart pounded, the burning cold of the chain against his chest all but forgotten now as his mind turned over with possibilities. Surely it had to do with his lowborn status, in the presence of her royal family? Or perhaps she'd finally had enough of him entirely, his pitiful stature?

His breathing grew ragged as he quickly found himself spiralling into irrational hypotheticals, insecurity and fear dictating his thoughts in the absence of a response from Sera.

Was he dreaming again?

"Cedric…" He blinked, the mere sound of her voice saying his name enough to grab his attention and tether it to her like sweat-matted hair to skin. "I'm not what you think I am."

"I don't understand what you mea-"

His words caught in his throat when she looked up again, her eyes having lost their luminous green hue. There was a faint moistness glistening in the baleful crimson orbs left behind, spreading out towards the beastly yellow sclera around her irises.

He hadn't just been seeing things, that day when she'd collapsed against the tree, nor when he first met her.

The chain almost seemed to _tug_ at his chest, a cold spike of fear burrowing into his lungs. It urged him to run. To scream, to drown in the alien words of the black ocean from his dreams. But he did neither of those things- he remained frozen in place, as though still entranced as ever with her flawless porcelain skin and the raven locks of hair brushing over them.

"You're not scared? Of me?"

He blinked, not realizing how long he'd been standing listlessly there, trying- and failing- to process what was happening.

"I'm not sure why I should be," he answered, the shakiness of his words perhaps betraying the intended meaning behind them. But the more he thought of it- the more he looked at Sera, saw her brows creasing in concern the same way he'd seen before-

-it didn't change anything about her. Did it? She had done nothing _but_ help him, comfort him. If she had wanted to hurt him, she'd had a thousand opportunities already to do so.

And she was still beautiful, a small part of his mind whispered shamefully.

"Oh. I- you don't even know what a vampire is, do you?" He couldn't help but smile a little as she reached behind her head, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly.

No, he decided. It changed nothing.

"I'd heard a little about them," he answered truthfully, mind wandering back to that man he'd overheard talking with the innkeeper in Dawnstar. "But never seen one before."

"Well. Um. Until now, I guess.

…

…I'm a vampire."

"Sera. I don't care what you are," he murmured huskily, a certain damning few words just barely escaping the maddening boldness driving his tongue. Three others took their place instead. "I trust you."

"I don't know if I can keep you safe amongst my family, Cedric. They're… not the same as I am."

"Your father, you mean?"

Sera nodded.

"I'm guessing a little here, to be honest," she continued. "But I can say with certainty that if it were my mother sitting on the throne, she wouldn't have our kin attacking mortals openly."

So that was what that was all about- the vampire attacks the man in Dawnstar was speaking of, the destruction of the Hall of Vigilants.

"I- I know it sounds bad. But he's still my father."

"I understand."

He wasn't entirely sure if he _did_ , having never had much of a life with his parents before they were taken from him- but it felt right to say.

"I just… I _know_ we can help you. My family, we received our gifts from a Daedric Prince- and we have entire bookshelves of tomes on them. A lot of them written by my mother herself. We've dealt with the very things you're going through now, and we came out all the stronger for it. I'm just… it's going to be hard to convince them to help."

"You got us past that gate guard, didn't you?"

That elicited a chuckle from her, though it carried little in the way of mirth. "No, Cedric. I'd argue that you did."

He had to pause, rewind himself back to that moment to confirm what she was telling him- it seemed bizarre to think of it that way, being so used to just following in Sera's shadow- but he supposed, what she said had a grain of truth to it.

"Well, do you suppose my silver tongue would help with your father?"

"Ha. I wouldn't count on it."

They stood in silence for a while, Sera watching the ground intently, her furrowing brows betraying what must've been a difficult line of thought to consider.

"Why don't we get moving for now," he suggested, clearing his throat, "and we figure it out on the road? There's still a ways to go until we get there, right?"

"I've been telling myself the same thing this whole way," she responded, a sad smile spreading over her lips. "I wish it were that simple to come up with a good plan."

…

"Then maybe we shouldn't. Let's just go, see how it works out."

"Cedric. You could die."

She was trying, he could tell, to hide the tremors in her voice when she said that, straightening her back, looking him in the eye again.

"They'd never let an ordinary mortal live amongst us, not as anything other than cattle. We've only ever had one lucky enough to be a servant to the family, and that was only because she was already one before we went through with the ritual."

She paused, her lip trembling every so slightly.

"You'd have to become one of us. Not everyone survives that transformation. Even if you did, things wouldn't be the same for you anymore. You saw what happened to me when we first set out, didn't you? The sun… weakens us. It _burns_. But not even that can measure to the thirst for blood."

His heart ached uncontrollably at the sound of her voice, the pained confessions that she spilled forth. She had endured so much. How much, for the sake of him specifically?

He breathed deeply, the icy air devoid of smell as it flooded his lungs. The sea churned quietly beyond, black waves rolling lazily in the dark, a gentle breeze floating above the frigid water.

 _Without the dark, there can be no light._

"I'm grateful to you. No matter how this all turns out."

Her eyes were as striking as ever, he mused. Regal crimson, highlighted by gold, faintly glistening with a tear-glazed sorrow under the moonlight- there was nothing monstrous about them at all.

"…you've done a lot for me. More than anyone else has," he continued, doubtful murmurs in the back of his mind pummeling his thoughts with memories of Thera again. The scraps of bread that she tucked away for him, the small grains of silver that she slipped into his dirt streaked hands when he struck naught but hard rock. "I trust you with my life. And I'm ready to do whatever needs to be done for your family to take me in."

A more bitter voice inside him reasoned that they couldn't be any worse than his old masters. It was overshadowed by a resounding chorus that assured him anything would be worth it to stay with Sera. Mortality be damned.

He reached out when he saw that she still did not move, tentatively laying a hand on her shoulder.

"This isn't a decision to be made lightly," she said, voice barely above a whisper now. "I shouldn't have told you this late. Not when we can hardly turn back already as it is."

"There's nothing for me back there anyways. It wouldn't have changed anything," he responded softly, confidence, foolhardy as it may have been, building inside him with each passing word. "Don't blame yourself."

"Nothing's gonna convince you to stay behind, huh?"

"Would you rather I did stay behind?"

There was another pause. The wind chanted wordlessly in Cedric's ears.

"No."


	13. Chapter 12

It seemed like a dream, floating over the black currents of the sea. Curled up at the back of the creaking rowboat, his limbs pulled in against the shaking core of his body. He was only all too aware of the splashes water that crested up into the boat in the darkness of the night, inky black tendrils reaching in and coating his boots.

He kept his eyes pried wide open, barely able to register the dark silhouette of Sera heave in the shadows as she powered the oars of the boat alone. Were it not for the cask draped over her back, bobbing up and down amongst the blackness, she would've been nothing more than another splotch on the churning canvas around him.

The winds strafed by, bringing naught but stinging cold to his battered body. Flakes of snow from the blinding clouds overhead raked across his skin, bombarding him with a constant torrent of icy sensation that pierced right through his numbed nerves.

The chattering of his teeth registered in his ears, just over the pounding of his heart against the heavy chain bundled together in his coat.

"H-how much longer?" He finally mustered the courage to ask, words rattling out from behind his frost-speckled lips.

"Shouldn't be far now. Just hang in there."

Sera did not turn around, but the soothing tones of her voice straining over the tumult of the sea was real enough to anchor his mind onto something.

This wasn't just another dream. They really were almost there.

 **0-0-0**

Landfall came without warning. Cedric lurched in his seat as the hull of the rowboat scraped noisily up against the invisible shore. His breathing hitched in his throat for a moment, the bobbing rhythm his body had settled into alongside the shadowy waves of the sea grinding to a staccato halt. Rumbling vibrations rippled through the boat to his shriveled body as it powered forward onto solid ground.

"Stay in here a second, I'm going to drag the boat up the rest of the way," Sera called out in the howling darkness. The faint sound of oars clattering against the wooden floors registered in his ears shortly thereafter.

He nodded, wondering if Sera could see the gesture through the billowing drifts of snow. Wondering if she had even looked back at him. Would _he_ have been able to see her face, perfect and stark white, standing out amongst the black, if she had?

 _Without the dark, there can be no light._

Cedric shuddered as the snowy wind grazed by, touching on the exposed nape of his neck.

He pulled his limbs in closer as the boat shuddered beneath him, the sloshing of water giving way to wood grinding against gravel. It lasted for only a moment, but the vibrations seemed to have wormed into his very bones by the time it all stopped.

"Well. Here we are. Come on, I'll help you out."

Only when he saw her eyes glinting in the dark did the need to suddenly move register in his shaken and frozen limbs. Her hand gently grasped the snow-speckled furs around one of his arms, rigid fibers crackling as she practically peeled it away from his torso. His other arm moved of its own volition, wrapping around the faint outline of her form.

"Easy, easy," she murmured as his legs creaked up, the bones at his cold-numbed joints scraping against each other. He winced at the sensation, wondering if it was audible to Sera.

His feet touched down on the cold gravel shore, legs still wobbling and swaying as though they were being carried by the sea. Sera didn't let go, and he found himself gradually leaning on her for stability. He heaved shaky breaths into the wind, the trembles in his body refusing to subside.

"Let's get you inside before you freeze to death."

"Yeah," he replied through chattering teeth.

They traversed the shadowy storm with Sera leading, Cedric still clinging tightly to her. The invisible terrain felt murky beneath him, jagged and rocky. At times, his grip on the quaking earth slipped on unseen patches of ice. Other times, his feet plunged into inky puddles, cold water seeping further into the soaked and then frozen over skin of his boots.

It didn't seem like it would end, given the agonizing pace they went at.

But at long last, their painful march ground to an earthshaking halt. There were no words exchanged between Sera and the other pair of beady glowing eyes that came into view further out in the dark. Unseen mechanisms screeched and creaked in a splitting cacophony. Millennia-stale wood groaned under the forces of frost-knotted rope, and the muffled shriek of rusted steel grinding together bellowed out from eroded stone.

A dim light pierced the veil of darkness around them, starting as just a small fissure in the black void before rearing into an open maw. A few flickering strands of torchlight illuminated the great doors that now stood open, ice running through the striations in their wooden surfaces like glossy veins.

That scent of moist stone which had been lingering on his nose ever since he'd met Sera now flooded his nostrils, almost blotting out the other smells that drifted out from the open hallway beyond- moldy fabrics of unknown make, burned out wax, and a tinge of something twangy and metallic that put an uneasy churn in his stomach.

Sera said nothing, merely led him onwards, her sight set firmly ahead.

He cast a sideways glance to the other pair of eyes in the dark, the craggy old visage it belonged to now faintly illuminated, but found no reassurance from their blank gaze.

The doors shut behind them, and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he no longer heard the whispers of the sea on his ears.


	14. Chapter 13

Their collective pace faltered as the frayed threads of carpet beneath their feet gave way to a dusty stairway. Thin cracks and craters traced jagged patterns along the eroded stone surface, but the structure held firm as they took their first step upwards. The lingering twinge of some metallic scent on his nose which he couldn't quite place from before washed over Cedric in a sickening haze as soon as the sole of his boot touched down.

The quiet clamor ahead of them settled into an eerie silence, as though abruptly cut off by the gentle scrape of Sera's boots on the stone.

Cedric heard a shaky breath from beside him, and turned his limply dangling gaze up towards Sera. He did so just in time to see her reach up with her free hand and slide her hood off.

The few strands of hair which he had only caught tantalizing glimpses of before swayed about gently in the firelight before settling around her pointed porcelain features. Exquisitely patterned braids wrapped around the ebony cascade running down her cheeks in an intricate crown, such beauty somehow still holding sturdy despite being smothered by black cloth.

His heart hammered in his chest as she turned her fully unveiled visage to him, amber and ruby eyes shimmering. Still in a trance, he could barely make out a few tense murmurs echoing in the cavernous silence that laid just beyond. His stomach felt like it was quaking, but it was no longer due to the horribly unsettling scents flooding his nostrils.

Her voice came at him as a whisper, but the dark and rich tones laced into her words rumbled throughout his whole body like thunder. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," he murmured back blankly, a fleeting thought at the back of his mind wondering if he could've possibly refused.

She set her eyes forward once more, and he followed in suit.

His eyes wound up to the gaping doorway at the top of the steps, and the sprawling ceiling that laid beyond. A ring of candles hung suspended from an intricate silver structure, almost like an inverted tree, set in the centre of that ceiling. The light cast twisted shadows across the curving archways, warped silhouettes of _things_ that couldn't have been human. He saw shadows curl up into enormous, batlike ears, gaping maws stretching open to reveal rows of pointed teeth.

He closed his eyes, and took deep breaths- one, two, three, in rhythm with his and Sera's plodding steps. _Not monsters,_ he tried to tell himself, the mental sound of his own voice nothing short of jarring to a mind that had heard only the whispers of some damned creature for what seemed an eternity now. Sera was no monster. The people that she lived with couldn't be monsters.

The reasoning seemed sound in his mind, yet he did not dare open his eyes when their footsteps ground to a halt. That horrible scent he'd not been able to place earlier hit him full force now, sinking into his senses as surely as the smell of smelter smoke and ash. It was blood.

There was something about the voice which addressed them that set him even more on edge, despite the soothing quality to it. The tones of that voice were draped in the same rich darkness that seemed so enticing in Sera- so why then, did he flinch at the sound of it?

"Lady Serana, at long last you return. I trust that you still have the Elder Scroll?"

Perhaps it was the scathing sound of that name on his ears- the warped and basso pronunciation of it clashing with the light and sweet, if truncated, one that she had graced him with. Perhaps it was the mere fact that she had not dared reveal her true name to him that cut deeper. Perhaps it was the heartwrenching disappointment that laced Sera's - whether or not that was her real name, that was the only name he knew her by - own words when she responded to the voice.

"One would think the return of your daughter would be more important to you than a roll of paper. Father."

Cedric opened his eyes, and in that moment wished he hadn't. There was nothing particularly repulsive about Sera's father, nor the men and women seated around him. If anything, they all cut an incredibly striking image, their slim figures adorned with deep red fabrics and mahogany hued leather. None stood more gracefully than Sera's father himself, clad in a rich crimson coat that cascaded down from the intricately patterned vest hugging his breast. The same ebony hair which adorned his daughter's head enveloped his own sculpted features, groomed and straightened with stark precision. His eyes glimmered with the same regal gold and red of his daughter's.

Had it not been for the bodies that lay on the tables around them, Cedric would've been awestruck. As it was, however, he found his eyes uncontrollably drifting towards those carcasses instead, as though following the trickles of vital fluids from the vampires' pointed chins. Wicked tooth marks stitched down plains of sickeningly supple flesh, thin streams of blood still pumping out of those wounds with an unsettling vigor. It was only when he caught the _gaze_ of one of those bodies, barely even a glimmer of pain in its dull brown eyes, that he realized they were live people.

It was a small consolation that every pair of glowing yellow and red eyes were fixed intently on the balcony he and Sera stood on. He wasn't sure if he could've stomached the sight of them continuing to feed.

Sera's father spoke again, the dispassionate dryness in his words slicing through the ringing that had settled in Cedric's ears.

"'Tis no mere 'roll of paper'. One would think you understand that much."

Cedric slowly craned his neck around to Sera, as though making any more sudden of a movement would unceremoniously shatter the tense silence hanging over the room. Sera had no such reservations.

Her lips were pressed together tight as she yanked at the straps tying the cask to her back, carelessly letting it slide off her shoulder and onto the floor with a hollow thud. A few anxious murmurs rippled throughout her father's court while she, in no apparent rush, slid the upright cask along the floor until it was in front of her. The sound of the container's wooden rim scraping across dusty stone sent shivers down Cedric's spine.

He saw her eyes, sharpened and alight with a golden fire of the likes he'd never seen before in her, scan over the room. Eventually, they met his gaze- was it only his imagination that she lingered on him for a little longer? That her eyes softened ever so slightly before they passed him by as well?

That she whispered an apology to him from behind clenched teeth?

Her delicate fingers maneuvered around to the wax seals holding down the cask lid- a brief flash of light snapped out from her palms, and the wax melted away into boiling hot vapours. It cast a rippling mirage around her as she popped off the lid.

Her father's court clamored with whispers and hisses while Cedric still squinted, trying to make out what it was in the steam that roused them so. Words in unfamiliar tongues tangled themselves with hushed murmurs.

The fog dissipated and Sera, with no further delay nor ceremony, reached into the hollow wooden vessel. The thing that she withdrew, a roll of creamy parchment with faintly gleaming strands of light dancing across its surface, sent a ripple of excitement through the crowd.

" _She has the scroll!"_

She did not share in the quiet revelry. If anything, her expression only hardened even more.

"You carry the hopes of all vampires within your hands right now. You do so, bearing the purest blood of our Lord Bal- that is more important than anything."

"So important that you had to set your subjects upon the mortal realm, like common brigands? You risk war with all of Tamriel coming out so brazenly."

If her father was in any way perturbed or angered by the barely restrained fury in her voice, he did not show it. "The mortal striplings of Tamriel are much too consumed in their own wars already," he replied with a casual dismissiveness. "Do not let the black words of your treasonous mother mislead you; they are of no threat to us, nowadays less than ever."

"Is that so? Those 'mortal striplings' slaughtered the entire search party you sent after me."

"Lokil was an unsightly beast," another voice spoke, radiating with an air of haughtiness not dissimilar to the cloaked high elves that he remembered stalking through the Markarth slums. He could almost hear a shadow of their sinister tones in this other voice, stifling the struggles and cries of the helpless. "The impurities of him and his entire band of wretches made them hardly above mortals themselves. It is no surprise that they were brought down so easily."

A third speaker chimed in, the dashing youthfulness and honeyed tones lacing his words doing nothing to put Cedric at ease. "Indeed, my Lady, it was an unfortunate decision by the court to send Lokil. Perhaps if _I_ had been entrusted with escorting you instead of that stunted creature, your journey here would have been much more… pleasant."

"How dare you address her grace in such a craven manner-"

The only thing Sera's father needed to do in order to quell the short outburst from his court was raise his hand. He did not give either of the interrupting speakers so much as a sideways glance before continuing where he left off, with no break in his stony calm demeanor.

"Vingalmo speaks truth. Lokil was brash, foolish, with a confidence that did not match his paltry abilities. The weight of his own shortcomings was what dragged him down to the grave, not the mortals which stood in his way."

"He sounds awfully incompetent for someone to entrust the retrieval of your precious scroll to."

"He was only entrusted with finding and freeing _you_. He had his role to play, you had yours. Is there anything else that needs to be said on the matter?"

Cedric swallowed a lump in his throat, the sound of his saliva scraping down parched flesh rumbling in the ensuing silence. Sera and her father's eyes stayed locked on each other, but Cedric was soon treated to the distinct feeling of every other gaze in the room drifting towards him.

He made the mistake of meeting one of them. A single eye, glimmering with mischief, peeking around a swath of immaculately combed black hair covering the other eye. When his mouth opened, rows of subtly pointed teeth grinned at Cedric. The same honeyed voice that spoke up earlier came out, undeterred by the reaction that the last words it carried had roused.

"Perhaps _her grace_ could explain why she brought a mortal back with her?"

A murmur of agreement rippled throughout the crowd. Cedric cast a panicked glance towards Sera, but the look she gave him in return offered no refuge from the attention of her father.

"He's-"

"Let him speak for himself. Come forth, mortal. Enough cowering in the shadows. In my court, those who fear the dark are fit only to be consumed by it."

 _Without the dark, there can be no light._

He jerked upright at the combined onslaught of words ringing in his mind, the unexpected reprise of sea-whispers piercing through the castle walls and swirling together with the chilling command from Sera's father- it was all he could do to step forward, minute convulsions running through his legs with each step.

He inhaled deeply, trying to steady his breath, but nearly choked on the blood-tinged air filling his lungs.

"M-my Lord," he stuttered, unsure of how else to address such a powerful creature. He had to fight to keep his eyes from darting away- as much as his flesh shriveled and quaked beneath his coat, he did not dare let instinct cause him to act disrespectfully.

Seconds of silence ticked by, punctuated by the sound of his heart thrumming in his ears, before Sera's father broke it.

"What is your name?"

Numb as his tongue was, he responded almost immediately after, without thought. Instinctually. As though he were addressing just another mine overseer.

"Cedric, my Lord."

"Curious. Past the stench of your flesh you emanate smells of both man and mer- Breton?"

"Reachman," he answered back, the word weighed down by memories of scorn and hate.

"I see."

A vacant silence filled the hall, time dribbling into a blur as Cedric stood stock still. His eyes stung as he held the gaze of Sera's father, unblinking.

"Has my daughter told you of us? Of who we are?"

"Yes. You're… vampires."

A smile cracked through the expressionless mask of the vampire lord, though there was no warmth behind it.

"Not _what,_ mortal, _who._ You stand before one of the oldest and most powerful vampire clans in all of Tamriel- do you know our name?"

His blood ran cold with dread, mind churning back over the stew of memories about the past few days. If he failed to answer correctly, would Sera bear the blame for such an insult? The thought of that seemed somehow even more horrifying than himself being punished. He at least had been punished all his life- what was one more punishment?

Maybe it would be best to say nothing. At the very worst, his silence could be taken for insolence.

But as the seconds of silence dragged on, it seemed Sera's father had no intentions of letting it go that easily- his smile remained, eerily pleasant.

Sera stepped in, voice straining with barely concealed fury.

"Stop toying with him. You're wasting your own time on these pointless questions."

"Time is meaningless to me."

"Well it's not to me. I didn't come home to have my friend be interrogated and ridiculed in front of the entire court."

"He is more than welcome to join the cattle in the pens, if you wish to expedite his introduction."

Cedric flinched as Sera's fists slammed down on the railing before them, bringing the surface of the scroll she held just inches away from the calloused stone. He could almost feel the court collectively inhaling a sharp breath.

"He isn't just any mortal, Father- you know I wouldn't have taken him with me if he was."

The mirthless chuckle she received in response suggested her father believed anything but that.

The rest of the court looked on pensively, pointed mouths curled up in thought, brows furrowed. All except one.

A voice that Cedric was beginning to grow uncomfortably familiar with cut in.

"I'd like to hear her out, my Lord. 'tis not often I bear witness to such… fiery passion and conviction."

"I'm not surprised, considering my Father seems to have surrounded himself with spineless sycophants."

"Oh? I can assure you, m'lady, I'm anything but spineless."

A bestial growl rumbled beneath those sickeningly honeyed words, a detail that made… something surge through Cedric's veins, enough to thaw out some feeling in his fingers again. He found them curling up towards his palms.

They went limp again when he noticed Sera's eyes had sharpened into an amber glare.

"Then maybe you'd better settle down, before I tear out your spine."

Another voice- Vingalmo's, if he remembered the name correctly- stepped in placatingly. "Lady Serana, please. This behaviour is most uncharacteristic of you."

Her father followed with a similar sentiment, silencing the court once more. "Indeed. Your empty bravado does you no credit. If anything, it's only, as you so eloquently put it, 'wasting your own time'."

This time, she didn't respond. Cedric could see the skin of her knuckles stretching taut with how tightly she gripped the ornate handles of the scroll now.

"Seeing how your mortal 'friend' has apparently lost the capacity for speech, it appears that the unenviable task of explaining why he is present in these halls falls to you. Are you quite ready to do so in a civilized manner now?"

"That's funny, Father. I didn't think civility mattered to you anymore."

"If you insist on being so petty, we can always continue this conversation over dinner. You've not tasted Reachman blood before, have you?"

"I don't think whatever Daedric Lord has their sights set on him would be particularly pleased if you did that."

The stony façade her father wore melted away. His hawklike eyes scanned between her and Cedric, chiseled lips pursing into a frown.

An uneasy wave of murmurs traveled through the court.

Sera continued. "They've been speaking to him in his dreams, and from what he's told me it sounds like they want him to find something out here in the Sea of Ghosts."

"Some _thing?_ "

He realized with a start that she had loosened one of her hands from the scroll, letting it tilt and rest upon the railing- her free hand reached towards him, open palm creased with stress lines. Another few seconds passed before he realized her intention, and he scrabbled through the insides of his coat.

The chain seemed to cling to his furs as he fished them out. He shook as he deposited it in Sera's palm, the rings of alien metal sticking to his clammy hands.

They rang together with an eerie chime as Sera flung the chain towards her father, who snatched it out the air without so much of an inkling of trepidation in his movements. The stony frown etched into his visage betrayed nothing, but Cedric could see his eyes intently studying every frosted ridge and curve of the thing.

"Do you feel that cold? How it burns against the skin- it's unnatural."

"It is a curious trinket, but nothing more. Nothing like the sort of artifact a Daedric Lord would manifest in the mortal plane."

"I didn't say it was a Daedric artifact."

"Then what do you suppose it is? I fail to see how you could associate a simple chain with Daedric intervention."

"'Tis no mere 'simple chain'," she echoed to him mockingly. "It may not be inherently magickal, but that metal's like nothing I've seen. Too lustrous to be iron, too dull to be silver, not a hint of rust on it despite being fished out of the sea."

Cedric hadn't thought about that- she was right. He of all people should've seen it before, having handled silver and picked at it with iron for as long as he could remember. It felt far too heavy upon his flesh for such a small thing too- yet when he glimpsed it in his dreams, it had been floating in the water.

The sudden realization only intensified the tingling disquiet under his skin.

"It could be the key to something we've never seen before."

"The only _thing_ that matters to us is the prophecy, Serana."

"Don't be so short-sighted. Who's to say this mortal's plight isn't a part of the prophecy as well? That he wasn't meant to come here? There's so much unknown about all of this- you- _we-_ can't afford to just throw away something as anomalous as this."

The hall plunged into silence again.

Golden eyes in the court glanced towards each other, giving Cedric a merciful reprieve from their scrutiny.

It did not last.

A new voice addressed him, gravelly like ash.

"Mortal. Lady Serana said that some entity spoke to you in your dreams. Do you have any recollection of what it was like? Their voice? Did they come to you in a discernable form?"

A numbness fell upon Cedric's tongue, but this time, his mind moved to try and conjure an answer.

He remembered of course, the strange and twisted chants on the winds. Even now, they still echoed in the back of his mind, always seeming to whisper in his ears when he least expected it. But they never spoke to him, never guided him- hell, he hardly understood what they were even saying.

But there was something else.

"There… was a woman's voice," he answered finally. "I couldn't see her. The sound of her voice was muffled, like everything else. It was like I was submerged in water, flailing. There was…"

Gooseflesh crawled up his limbs as he remembered the sensation of moonlit arms pulling him through the ashen, watery void.

"There was something pulling me. Hands, soft and lithe. Leading me into the water."

"The woman's voice. What was it like? What did it say to you?"

"I don't know how to describe it. The voice said… the voice said…"

The voice told him to listen to the chants. The chants drowned out everything else.

He dove back further- into the first dream, before the chants. The anger, the blind hate, the same voices that had spat upon and abused him in the mines. The painful familiarity of it all- before all this.

The woman's voice had said something about that too.

"It said that it was not my fate to die," he echoed, but feeling as though something was missing from those words. It gnawed at his thoughts, but the more he tried to recall the details of the dream, the more they swam away into the abyss. Further back into his mind, where the red-eyed beast and its alien chants awaited.

"A bold statement for something to make," the voice- a Dunmer's, Cedric realized, catching a glimpse of the speaker's drab grey features standing out amongst the pale white of his peers- concluded. His bony fingers absentmindedly ran a handkerchief through his red beard while he mused aloud. "Not many things involve themselves in the fates of mortals."

"Garan, please. Surely you don't think-"

"I do not think anything of it, Vingalmo. I am only speculating with the scant few details we have."

"This sad creature is not worth speculating over."

"Thank you for your wise input," Sera cut in, her gritted teeth suggesting she was anything other than thankful. "But I think my father has had enough 'meaningless' time to think it over himself."

"Think whatover?" Her father shot back, the smallest hint of exasperation creeping into his words. Maybe time wasn't as meaningless to him as he'd claimed.

"I would've thought it obvious by now. I'd like for him to stay with us for a while- figure out what this all means."

Cedric gulped. He could feel Sera inhale, see her lithe fingers flexing, her back tensing.

The chain went airborne again, its cleaved ends flittering behind it as it streaked towards Cedric. It cast the silhouette of a streaking comet, fallen from stars unknown, across the arched roof. He winced as it smacked into his open palms, wrapping around to his wrists in a violent embrace.

The heavy, wet sound of the impact reverberated around the hall.

"You want me," Sera's father began with a chuckle, "to turn him into one of us?"

"Yes."

"Did you not just see that? How he cringes and cows away from even the slightest inkling of pain? This creature's frail body would not survive the transformation. Even if it did, his equally feeble mind would be left broken."

The look that Sera fixed Cedric with broke something within him. Gone was the fiery anger from her eyes, the stony restraint etched into her frown. Only a faint glimmer of pity remained now.

She'd done all she could for him.

He felt his whole body jellifying, tremors in his bone threatening to erupt into his flesh. With shaky hands, and as steady a breath as he could muster, he pulled the chain that he held back into his coat.

It rested there in a coil, spreading its blood-steeped cold through his chest once more.

"I have endured so much," he spoke, what little warmth that remained in his veins seeming to trickle out with each word. "Pain, loss, tiredness- I don't care for it anymore. All that matters to me is what lies at the end of it."

"Death is all that awaits your kind, mortal."

"Then what is there for me to lose in undertaking this transformation? If I do not survive, the end is the same for me as if I remained as I am."

"Do not dare mistake my words to be borne of compassion for _you_. Whether you survive the transformation or not, the mere notion that you could be a vampire would be an insult to Molag Bal."

He felt a resurgence of warmth in his veins- a rush of _heat_. Triggered by a resonance of the vile words that Sera's father spewed at him with the same vehement speech that had hounded him all his life in Markarth. He had bowed his head back then and ran away when their hateful words twisted into murderous blades. Ran away from the only person he'd found love with.

"I don't care for your gods. I don't care for whatever is hounding me in my dreams. I… I need a future. Something beyond all this muck and cold and ice and damnable filth I drag myself through every day. Sera- your daughter- showed me that there can be something else past all of that."

"The eternal life of a vampire is not as idyllic as you seem to think it is. If you truly wished to pursue such power, then you would not be so ignorant as to dismiss our gracious Lord."

His fingers began to curl into fists again, but before he could so much as think of how to respond, how to channel the flames of determination burning in his lungs into words, a familiarly slimy voice slid in from the court.

"Perhaps he can yet be taught- firsthand. If he thinks that he has endured so much pain already, then let him have a taste of what would await him if he would choose to pledge himself to Lord Bal."

This one brazen speaker- the one with the ridiculously fashioned hair that covered his eye who- leaned back in his chair with a toothy grin.

"What are you suggesting, Sarpa?"

Sarpa. At least he had a name to go with that foppish face now.

"A small test, my Lord. One which would more than likely grant him his deathwish, but with no slight to Lord Bal."

"Spit it out then. I tire of wasting our attention on this creature."

"Do you recall the incident with the death hounds a few months back?"

"Remind me."

"Fura noticed that some of our hounds had gone missing, a few others acting strangely, lingering by the waste chutes. She made a brief inquiry on the eve of-"

"I remember now. Get to the point of your proposal."

"Of course, my Lord. Some… confidants of mine looked into the matter a little- on the side, while still searching for the Elder Scroll of course. The importance of our search was, of course, why I did not bring this to your attention earlier."

"Bring _what_ to my attention earlier?"

Cedric saw a gleaming of red on Sarpa's fangs as the vampire flashed a sideways grin at him. That detail did not so much as make him blink this time.

"It turns out we have an interloper in the castle undercroft. My confidants discovered journal fragments signed by someone who apparently was exiled from your court some time ago. They've been enthralling our own death hounds, right underneath our noses."

"I see."

"I understand we still have many immediate preparations to make. Preparations which will keep our warriors busy for some time. I say we send the mortal to deal with this issue- if he succeeds, that's one less problem for us in the future. If he does not, it's no skin off our back, and we simply handle it ourselves later."

A silence that was beginning to seem an all too frequent visitor of the hall settled in once more, but Cedric did not shirk from the myriad of expressions fixed on him now. No eyes burned more brightly than those of Sera's father, who fixed him with a hawklike glare. From the corner of Cedric's sight, he saw a glimmer of concern in Sera's- but she made no effort to dispute Sarpa's suggestion.

He took that a sign that this was the best chance he had.

"I'll do it," he said without a moment of further hesitation. He flexed his bony fingers, unable to shake the memory of driving his pickaxe through a guard's skull anymore- but rather than feeling the memory return with a churning sickness in his belly, he welcomed it with a chilling indifference. A fleeting thought in the back of his mind noted how… alien it felt.

 _We have purpose._

"You may _try_ to do it," Sera's father corrected him. "And if you do, you will most likely fail. Reduced to bloody scraps by malnourished death hounds."

"I know," Cedric replied with a confidence that did not match the jitters tickling at his nerves. He tried to recall what Sera had said to him in the rain, her cold flesh caressing his- pushing through in spite of his weakness.

"Then you will be escorted outside of these walls. What you do from there is up to you entirely- you could choose to run away, tell your mortal kin of our existence. I care not. But you will not return to this hall unless you are carrying the head of the usurper. Access to the undercroft of the castle lies along the shore, further back. You will find your own way there. You may dally as long as you dare, but do realize that I will see this threat put down one way or another. Should someone else bring the exile's head to me, then you will never again set foot within my court."

"I understand."

"Very well then," Sera's father responded with a curt nod. "Sarpa. See to this mortal's exit."

"Of course, my Lord," Sarpa replied, leaning back and motioning towards a pair of figures behind him. When they stepped into the light, Cedric found that they very much mirrored the wide grin of their apparent master.

He looked back towards Sera, knowing this could well be the last time he ever saw her- she didn't meet his gaze. Her eyes were set somewhere else, off in the distant back of the room, refusing to meet _anyone's_ gaze for that matter. The Elder Scroll hung limply in her lithe hands, her shoulders straining to remain upright.

He tried to think of something to say to her- reassurance, an apology- nothing felt right.

So it was that he remained silent, right up until Sarpa's lackeys marched to the balcony and grasped him roughly. The male one, a wicked-looking black axe hanging loosely from the belt tied around his coat, twisted his clawed fingers into Cedric's sleeve. The other one, a woman with a wild mane of snow-white hair, dug her fingers into Cedric's shoulder.

They yanked him with little ceremony, righting his body so that it faced the great doors leading out into the abyssal cold.

It was a long walk back down that hallway.


	15. Chapter 14

Clots of fluffy grey entwined themselves in the silken sheets draped over her old bed. The grimy moonlight trickling in from her window painted films of mold onto the bedposts. Serana paid them no heed, striding over and plopping down on the mattress. Aged feathers crackled under her weight, bristling against the taut fabric of her breeches. A cloud of dust flew up in the wake of her landing, swarming over the cold metal embroidery stitched into her vest.

Grey particles floated around her, illuminated by the light of two moons beyond the muddled veil of her window. They prickled at her skin, fluttering tantalizingly close to her nostrils. Even they could not break the stony numbness etched into her face.

The Elder Scroll sat listlessly in her lap, the weight of its burden no lesser now that she had stripped it of its protective cask. Her eyes were not on there though.

They gazed past the frosted glass of her window, the clouds looming in front of the moons. They gazed into the abyssal dark blue beyond. Only faint glimpses of the stars could be seen, despite the passing of the storm that had shrouded the sea. There had been times where the skies had been so clear and bare that she felt as though she could reach out and grasp them. With crystals of ice dancing across her fingertips in the air, glimmering with the same aethereal light, sometimes it had felt like she had.

Her hands stayed clasped together.

 _What happened here?_

 _Where did it all go wrong?_

The questions bounced around accusingly within the confines of her mind. Self-defeating answers hovered over her by the dozens, like the dust slowly drifting down into her hair.

She sat there like that for what felt like an eternity, a small part wondering if she would dare wait around to see the sunrise. Wondering if she would even notice the stars blinking out of the sky.

The thought that someone would come up to see her, of course, never crossed her mind. The door behind her creaked open, slowly, tentatively. She could almost see the intruder wince in her mind as she heard a sharp inhalation over the squeal of rusted hinges.

Not her father. Not anyone from that damnable, smug and arrogant court of his, for that matter.

An assassin, then? A thief?

The thought would have had her scrambling for a weapon in the days when she still resided in this room. The candlestick on her nightstand perhaps, its silver limbs coated in rust and streaked with scorched wax.

It seemed silly to even consider now. She didn't bother to move, turn to face them, didn't make any effort to so much as acknowledge the new presence in the room. It couldn't have been a threat, just standing there silently and gawking at her.

She remained rooted in her dust-mired seat, the stagnant fibres of the mattress beneath her quietly crackling as they strained to warp around her shape.

"L-lady Serana?"

The voice came to her with an eerily familiar timidness, gently nipping at memories that had been being yanked at all too violently lately.

Footsteps creeped up behind her with a soft hesitance, rubber soles brushing over the stone floor as lightly as feathers on the wind.

Serana craned her neck around, glancing over her shoulder. Her breath hitched for a moment gazing upon the woman at the door. Beyond the plain white apron draped over her black garments, she bore a terrifying resemblance to the grimy and warped reflection that Serana had seen of herself in the mirror; ebony hair enveloped a porcelain visage, the black strands held together by the stalwart grip of an immaculately braided crown of hair wrapping around her head.

"Lady Serana?"

And yet there was a distinct youthfulness that endured in the voice leaving those painted red lips. It resonated with a dry echo in the dusty corners of her mind. The woman hunched over into an awkward bow, faint tremors visibly running through her lithe body and quite effectively shattering any sense of grace the gesture was meant to convey.

"My lady, please, forgive me, I was not informed that you would be revisiting your old bedchamber so soon. If I had known-"

' _My lady'._

Those two words, spoken with such a delicacy- yes, she knew that sound well. The face sharpened into focus too, features just as soft as Serana remembered. The eyes, round and doll-like, bore the golds and reds of their vampiric bloodline with a regal grace. Her old handmaiden.

"Marian? Is that you?"

Serana's voice echoed back to her softly- a part of her wondered if this was but a ghostly mirage, conjured from the wisps of dust fluttering up from the stone, wondered if it would be blown away if she dared speak too harshly.

Such thoughts were unfounded. The faintest of smiles flashed across Marian's lips, the handmaiden rising from her bow with a bashful tilt of her head. "Yes, my lady."

' _My lady'._

Marian had always called her that. Why the hell did it send such tremors running over her skin now?

 _You know why._

Her whole body felt lighter than it should've when she stood back up. The Elder Scroll rolled off her lap and clattered onto the ground, the metal rim by its edges drawing thin lines in the dust. Her boots glided over it as she strode towards Marian.

"I thought you would've…" Serana trailed off, hesitating in those last few steps, practically hovering in place.

The hypotheticals that had festered in the back of her mind for ages of stagnant sleep bubbled against her consciousness. She closed her eyes for a moment, the momentary lapse in sight almost tearing her away from the tenuous anchor to reality that she held onto amidst the storm churning in her mind.

When she reopened her eyes, Marian was still there, hands clasped together, dutifully waiting.

Alive and well, in stark defiance of the fears flooding her mind.

…

She could only hope that Cedric would be as fortunate.

 **0-0-0**

Marian was every bit as diligent as she'd always been with cleaning. Serana watched as she wrung out the last drops of inky liquid from her drab washcloth into a bucket, the woman's lithe fingers gripping and twisting with a callous firmness.

The bedframe was stripped bare of its mattress and sheets, mahogany wood brushed free of the dust that had clung to it.

The candlestick on her nightstand gleamed in the crisp moonlight streaming in through the polished glass of her window.

A familiar musk of boiled juniper berries hung over Serana's old bedroom, faintly masked by a haze of lavender. There was a time when her mother insisted it was Serana's favorite scenting, that she remembered it bringing a beaming smile to her lips brighter than the sun.

She let it flood her nostrils, let the stinging scents prick at her numbed senses. As though such a feeble echo of the past would be enough to blot out the rot and decay which surrounded her now.

The rim of the Elder Scroll scraped lightly against the stone as Marian plucked it up from where Serana had dropped it. The handmaiden held it gingerly, not even sparing a second glance to the otherworldly parchment surface before dutifully bringing it over to Serana. She extended her arms, the black fabric of the tunic underneath her apron clinging tightly to her slender limbs. Serana too ignored the scroll, finding herself staring blankly into Marian's doe eyes.

Perhaps only then remembering her station, Marian made to bow her head, shoulders hunching in preparation to bring the rest of her body kneeling down beneath the scroll she held up. Serana snapped out of her stupor, lethargically reaching out with one hand gently raising the handmaiden's chin back up. "That won't be necessary. I was just lost in thought," Serana said placatingly, forcing a smile over her stiff lips when she felt the faintest of tremors run through Marian's flesh.

The gesture didn't help much.

"Of course, my lady."

Serana inhaled a deep breath, the fragrance of days long past barely even registering to her anymore. The handles of the scroll rolled into her open hands, cold and heavy.

"It will take some time to wash your linens and put up new curtains for your window, I'm afraid. Shall I bring your coffin up in the meanti-"

"No," she responded quickly, the vehement refusal to go back to being locked into such a confined space flaring through the fog of thoughts. "I'll… wait in the hallway if the sun rises before then."

She fought the urge to wince as she saw Marian's eyes turn downwards, lush rows of eyelashes eclipsing glimmering irises. The handmaiden's lips parted, but the pregnant moment of silence that followed before she spoke betrayed her hesitation to leave.

"I understand. I will return as soon as I can then. My lady."

Marian parted with a halfhearted curtsy, picking up the washcloth and bucket by the window

before making to walk past Serana. Their gazes did not meet this time. Her gentle footsteps, punctuated by the slosh of water, reached the doorway behind Serana.

Her room had never felt so barren, bathed in the light of Masser and Secunda. Wiped clean of rust and dust, the scars etched in the wood, stone, and silver were only all too apparent. Scratch marks on the wardrobe handles, when her mother was scrambling through her room, looking for travel clothes on the night of their departure. A ringed depression was hewn into her nightstand from when she'd slammed down the mug of tea she'd been idly cradling just moments before that fateful encounter. Frustration and vampiric strength had nearly shattered the cup against the wood. Her leaden heart heaved when her eyes fell upon the mirror in the far corner of the room, catching that fading glimpse of Marian disappearing into the hall. The sway of that hair, _her_ own hair, melding into the shadows with a defeated resignation, following in the footsteps of her mother.

The door swung shut, and she was left alone.

Alone, because her father had gone mad, her mother had disappeared without a trace. The only person, she realized, that she _wanted_ to talk about any of it to was a forsaken mortal that was good as dead.

And…

…it was hardly a rational thought that entered her mind as she staggered over to the chair by her barren bedframe. Her vision swam with a salty sting as she collapsed into it, unconcerned of the protesting creak that the striated wood gave out.

It wasn't rational, but there wasn't anything else left at that moment.

 _It's all my fault._


	16. Chapter 15

He found himself clinging to the chain, both of his clammy hands willingly letting themselves be bound. The otherworldly heaviness of it, the oppressive feel of having his hands confined by such a brutal construct, funnily, offered a small comfort to his body. Perhaps it was just the familiarity of crawling through damp and dark tunnels, with no hope for anything greater.

The water beneath Cedric's soaked boots dribbled in the wake of the draft breezing through the dark. His legs quivered and it was not just because of the vein-stilling cold. He wished he could pretend that this dark pit, this void of choice which presented only a single path before him, mired in stagnant water, rendered him all but fearless.

The truth was that the more his eyes adjusted to the shadows, the more acutely he could feel the waning hairs along his skin rattling up taut against the confines of his coat. He hissed, breath catching in his throat as his eyes picked out the glossy carapace of a gangly-limbed spider from the darkness. It clung to the shadows above him, barely a few paces away. Splotches of barnacles, grey and dead, speckled the perforated carapace of its bulging abdomen. It was almost as large as Cedric's head- the slender legs were curled up tightly, nearly bent at square-corner angles at the joints, disturbingly constrained by the width of the tunnel.

He swallowed the lump rising in his throat. Eight festering, hollow pits stared at him from where the spider's eyes should've been. A pair of flesh stumps stood in place of its fangs, a few tattered strips peeling into the abyss of its crooked mouth.

It was all but crippled. Assuming it wasn't already dead and just lodged into the ceiling.

Even knowing that, it did not make passing under it any easier. His neck locked up when a drop of cold liquid splashed down onto his forehead. He grasped the chain tighter, held it before his eyes, focused on the familiar pain of metal crushing down on his hands. Let the gleam of what miniscule light there was in these dank castle ruins glint off of its surface, and keep his legs churning forwards.

For what felt like hours, he wandered in the narrow confines, twisting and turning, never finding himself coming across the same twisted horror in the dark twice despite the distinct feeling of having circled around a dozen times. There had been a cluster of lampreys, dried out and tangled together in a frayed net, clinging to the wall like a mass of slimy intestines with toothy maws. There was a squid the size of a dog, split open from its eyes with a clutch of slaughterfish carcasses bursting out from the fissure. Was it strange, that the least horrifying sight he saw was a humanoid skeleton, with but a few scraps of desiccated seaweed hanging off its bones?

His breathing grew more ragged as his boots splashed over a rocky outcrop from the water, wandering mind momentarily straying back to the shadow-clad beast from his dreams. He found himself contemplating if it would look that out of place down here- baleful, crimson-eyed visage just waiting for him around the next corner, amongst the oceanborne decay that lined the stone walls. The distant tide rumbled in the shadows, and a tremor rippled through the mire he trudged in.

When the roil receded, all he heard was the trickle of water droplets and the splash of his own footsteps.

Eventually, Cedric came across a staircase, crusted over in salt so thick that it crackled and split beneath his footsteps. The sinewy remains of a slaughterfish splattered onto its coarse surface, shaken free from his left boot when he eagerly dragged it out of the vile brine behind him.

Liquefied offal mingled with crystals of salt, releasing a rank odor that slipped past the mental barrier Cedric had tried to erect against his own sense of smell. He heaved through a breath halfway up the steps, thinking he might've been safe from the stewing stench of the tunnels behind him. When he inhaled, the smells plunged into his nostrils like the tentacles of a putrefying squid, burrowing into his senses like shriveled lampreys.

A dry retch erupted from his parched lips, a tapering spray of spittle staining the salt-dusted steps ahead of him. He doubled over, chained knuckles smashing against the ground. The sound of rattling metal rained on his eardrums. His retching and gasping tapered off into a whimper as the impact sent quakes through his frayed nerves.

His arms gave out, and he collapsed against the salt, patches of hard crystal grains prickling against his cheek. The coin pouch in his coat flew out from the top of his soiled collar, the tattered thread binding it closed unravelling as it skidded across the steps and spilled out the grimy coins inside like a gutted fish's innards.

He gripped the chain tighter, but its brutal and cold embrace only enhanced the boneshaking pain rumbling through his body now.

 _We have purpose._

He bit down on his tongue, jagged teeth gnashing at taut flesh in a vain attempt to hold back the sob welling in his phlegm congealed throat. Squeezed back the tears welling in his eyes, their salty sting miring his blackened vision like the brine and shit he had just trudged through.

 _Without the Emperor-_

"Shut up!" The sudden rage, the shame of it all, drove out that cry in a choking garble.

 _-there is nothing._

"What do you want from me!?"

He slammed his knuckles down again, the chain smashing against the stray coins scattered across the steps in front of him with enough force to cave in the faces etched into them.

"Why me!?"

It wasn't fair!

It wasn't fair.

But that was just how it had always been for him.

He pressed his forehead into the stone, as though anchoring himself to the salt streaked ground would still the turmoil in him. He had to keep going. He had to-

-go where?

Cedric sniffled, shaking fingers, still bound by that damnable chain, running over the warped coins around him.

"I don't want to die," he whimpered, thin liquid streaming out from his nose. He could still remember the boggling sensation of Sera wiping it off him last time.

He'd gambled everything following her, chasing a fantasy- and lost it all. Even now though, he wasn't angry that he'd made that decision, couldn't be. There _had_ been nothing else for him, nothing but madness ever since he set foot in that damned Nord town.

He was angry that, after everything that he'd gone through- from the start of his life as a miserable slave, to every inch of ground his tired legs had tread in the recent days, some heartless god or gods had decided that he was undeserving of a happy fate.

Thera had told him once, fate was what he made of it. That if they both worked hard, they would someday rise out of the depths of Markarth and see the world together. He _had_ worked hard, but it seemed that he wasn't in control of his own fate at all.

What kind of person deserved this? Driven on and marched with the tantalizing prospect of a new life, only to have those hopes shattered and be faced with the miserable inevitability of death-

"It's not fair," he whispered to himself one last time his exhausted body went limp. Black veins dragged down his vision as his eyelids fought to stay open, some maddening instinct to remain conscious in this vile existence still holding on.

It was not enough.

 **0-0-0**

" _Cedric."_

Thera's excited whisper grazed ethereally against his ears. He barely had the time to look up before her bronze-toned arm clasped down on his shoulder.

"Ow," he winced as her fingers playfully twisted into the lithe muscle between his neck and arm.

" _Come on, it wasn't even that rough."_

He sighed a fading breath, shaking his head in the muddled light. "Thera, I still haven't met today's quota-"

" _I'll give you some of mine again. Besides, this is bigger than a few veins of silver- come on!"_

Her hand remained on his shoulder, but her grip tightened beyond the gentle firmness he was used to. It dug into his flesh like otherworldly steel. His brows furrowed at the coarse sensation, the coldness of it.

He looked down at his paltry haul, the precious grains of silver he had laid out atop dull lumps of rock fading away into the dark like stars blinking out of existence.

He turned around, wincing and bringing his hand up to shield himself from the blinding lamplight behind Thera. "What is it?"

" _Just follow me."_

Muffled footsteps shuffled against stone, her silhouette fading into the bleary light. "Hey! Wait up!" A hoarse chuckle left his throat, running under his salty breath. "Whatever it is, it's not gonna be worth much if you lose me down here in the mines, is it?"

" _You're gonna have to work for this one, Cedric! Try and keep up!"_

As if he didn't already work for every little scrap he had in life.

He sighed again, a puff of white steam slithering off his tongue.

He stepped forward, having to hunch in order to pass underneath a wooden support beam that was balancing precariously against the icy deep stone above. The moss that he'd grown so accustomed to seeing lining the walls had withered into white dregs.

The shadowy fog beneath his footsteps rippled. Like water.

"Thera?"

His voice echoed for what seemed like miles.

A chill ran up his spine when his vision cleared of the fuzzy light scratching at his periphery, and he found himself trudging into the gaping abyss. Shadowy arches of ice curved up over his head, water-slick stalactites hanging like teeth.

This wasn't right.

" _Don't look back Cedric, just follow my voice. You're doing great."_ Sera's voice washed over his skin in a soothing cold, and yet his heart swelled with an energy that he knew the boisterous warmth of Thera's voice could never awaken.

He didn't have to question that voice, didn't have to answer it.

A mire of ink sloshed beneath him, creeping up his ankles. It wasn't long before it rose past the top of his boots, slithering in and nipping at his toes.

He inhaled sharply at the sensation, his thick and calloused nails aching at the touch of the dark.

" _Just a little further. Over here,"_ her voice beckoned to him, sultry and velvet, echoing with layers of rich tones. She stood in a small cove amongst the sea of shadows, the faintest of halos hanging behind her, casting a cold blue light that was just barely dim enough to abstain from searing his tear-stung irises, and bright enough to pierce the veil of black.

" _Come,"_ she murmured, a lithe arm gliding over the space between them and grasping him by the collar. _"Look what I found."_

Her eyes twinkled like twilight stars, one glimmering at dawn, the blinking out at dusk.

" _Don't look at me. Look down."_

Her words flooded his mind in a supplicating haze, urging the stiff muscles in his neck to crane downwards. Fogging the lenses of his eyes, obscuring the far too sharp features beneath those eyes.

"You're not Sera."

" _It matters not what I am. What matters is what lays beneath you."_

This… no. Not again.

He tried to squeeze his eyes shut, but icy fingers slithered up around his jaw, callously brushing aside the wet clumps of hair dangling around his forehead and hooking into the flesh underneath his brow

"This isn't real!" He cried into the dark, as though his echo could pierce the murk and somehow reach towards the shattered consciousness of himself lost in that shadowy sea.

" _It is more real than you can begin to fathom, mortal. And it is coming."_

" _Cedric! Look! I found rubies!"_

Thera's arm erupted from the water, the spray of liquid clouding the witch-image before him. Her hand, coarse like salt, latched onto his arm and yanked his entire torso downwards. His spine twisted painlessly, and-

-there they were, a pair of rubies. Shaped like teardrops.

No. _No!_

" _You cannot deny what is front of you."_

"Wh-what _is_ this damnable thing!?" He cried, hysterics quaking through his watery and ephemeral flesh.

" _If I knew, I would not need you."_

Lithe fingers danced around his neck and chest, tracing lines of searing cold. Crystalline nails drove themselves into the tear-drowned flesh beneath his eyelids. _"You can hear this thing. See it. And unlike all the others, you were able to find a part of it."_

More hands slipped past his vision, alien metal clinking. The chain wrapped around his neck, pulling his head down like an anchor. Closer to the rippling veil between him and that snarling chrome maw beneath the crimson eyes.

His arms shot out, open-palmed, against the rising tide. The mass of black swallowed his limbs.

"Stop, please-" he wheezed, mouthfuls of water pooling around his tongue.

" _Look,"_ the woman's voice commanded.

" _Come on Cedric. You can do this. Just a little bit more,"_ Sera murmured coaxingly behind his ear.

The cleaved ends of the chain danced against the water's surface. They scattered shadows across the rippling canvas like ash.

He inhaled deeply, sucking a steadying breath into his drowned lungs through the torrent swirling in his mouth.

" _Good. Easy. Steady."_

A sheet of frost encased the lens of the thing's eyes, cracks spiderwebbing over the luminescent red.

He squinted against the flare of crimson, and the fingers within his eyelids partially relaxed their piercing grip. The light that blazed through the water began to sharpen, focus into lines.

He gulped, catching the faintest whiff of damp stone over the bubbling churn that boiled against his nose.

"Sera?

" _I'm here."_

A final hand touched upon him, reaching around and wiping away the inky blood drooling out from his nostrils.

 _I can do this._

Red lines glared against the fleshy membrane of his eyes, painting swirling outlines and unknowable patterns. Beams of light burned through his retinae, scratching at an eerily uncanny sense of familiarity at the back of his mind.

The black flood reached up ever closer, droplets splashing up into his vision. A small continent of the lines was blotted out, erased. Ice crystals peeled off from the red eyes on the other side of the veil, and the refractions cast by them warped, shaping into a new conglomeration of valleys, and mountains.

It was a map.

He saw the Reach first, the raw and bloody scar of the Karth River cutting deep into his waning eyesight. Falkreath and Whiterun bled away into the shadows. Searing crimson consumed Hjaalmarch.

He stifled a scream, grinding his teeth together, unwilling to let himself be drowned by the rising tide. Not again. Not like this.

Eastmarch erupted into a blistering sore, tendrils of molten vermillion streaming down into the Rift, rising up and swallowing Winterhold.

All that was left was a few specks up in the north. Great ice sheets shimmered on the melting surface of the Sea of Ghosts. It from there that a malformed tumor of frosted stone rose from the water, breaching through the veil of ice. Deep within its twisted bowels, a scalding red beacon pierced Cedric's eyes, pulsing with the war drum-beat of two hearts.

" _Do you wish to die here, mortal? Lost to the brine, in the bowels of this castle?"_

"No!"

" _Then rise and endure this pain for but a little longer. The end is within your sight."_

 **0-0-0**

 _Within your sight._

His jet black hair, soiled by debris and melted frost, dangled in clumps in front of his eyes. The salt crusted stone of the steps he laid upon swayed and shifted between twisted black strands, the ravines and cracks running through its surface unable to blot out the image seared into his irises.

The ice fields. Every time he blinked, he saw that spot, that beacon, burning black spots into his consciousness.

 _Just a little bit more._

The chain tightened around his knuckles, digging into bloodied flesh and grinding against bone.

His knees, aching against the taut fabric of his soaked trousers, pressed into the stone.

 _Rise and endure._

For what?

He was falling apart. Tearing at the seams. He wouldn't make it another five steps at this rate, let alone survive until he reached the damned caves within the ice fields that was all but branded into the back of his eyes now.

 _You can do this._

"Sera… where are you?"

His words, a reedy whisper as it was, echoed down the dim hall that awaited him at the top of the steps. A thin haze of moonlight trickled in from a fissure splitting down the wall, illuminating the colossal heaps of rubble clustered around decaying archways.

His heart, singular and waning as it was, nearly leapt into his throat when he spotted the light catching off of… something- sprouting out from between two splintered stone slabs.

His palms pressed into the rusted coins scattered over the steps, uncaring of their cold touch as he pushed himself up. A few leather strands on the top of his boots sloughed off as he dragged them against the steps, lurching to right himself. The soles slapped against the ground wetly as he pushed himself forward, leaning in on his right leg to spare his left from the cold soreness settling into his shins.

There was no mistaking what he had seen now though. Leather bands wrapped themselves into a handle just beyond the strip of metal he had glimpsed, the unmistakable crossguard of a sword. A weapon.

The chain wrapped eagerly around it, guiding his untrained fingers into place, weighing them down, holding them fast as he pulled back.

The sword came loose in a puff of dust. The blade stretched out as long as his arm, coated in grey, and dulled by stone, but Cedric recognized the unmistakable luster reflecting off of its chipped blade, knew immediately as it rested in his strained hands that it was too light to be like the brutish iron and steel that his Nord overseers had wielded.

It was silver.

There had been whispers in the mines that such uncommon weapons were forged with the express purpose of slaying unspeakable creatures- corpses risen from the dead, werewolves… vampires. Nobody he knew had thought much of such stories though, chalking it up to childhood fantasy.

He glanced over his shoulder, the fur lining that had so lushly adorned it matting against his thin frame in tatters now. He looked down the steps into the brine, the vision of the ice fields swimming in the foul water's reflection. He could turn back. Go, and put an end to the voices and images that plagued him.

But if he did, he would still be alone.

What kind of fantasy was that?

 _You can do this._

He inhaled, blotting out the faint traces of salty waste that lingered in his moist nostrils, and set his sights firmly forward. He grasped the silver sword's handle tightly with his right hand, the chain heftily anchoring his feeble flesh to the aged metal.

 _Just a little bit more._


	17. Chapter 16

The sun had not yet risen by the time that she peeled herself off her chair and set out down the hallways of the castle, a brisk rhythm of clomping boots following in her wake. Even after descending from the abandoned tower which housed her old room, the halls were sparsely populated- perhaps it was for the best.

A few unfamiliar and familiar faces that yet lingered set their beastly eyed gazes on her, hushed conversations falling silent as she strode by. Nobody dared address her directly. As it had always been.

Serana didn't mourn the lack of company now.

The dining hall was mercifully empty, tables wiped clean of blood- but even so, the feeble scent of grapes and lavender couldn't mask the lingering coppery tang in the musty air. The dry fire in the back of her throat throbbed against her senses, but she clamped her teeth together, grinding them against each other until in her mind she saw the vicious razor ends chip off and blunt out.

The archway that used to lead out into the courtyard garden laid in shambles, the broken slabs of stone that remained piling just as high as it used to stand.

A strange feeling of unease stabbed at the back of her mind, icily creeping up the base of her neck as she strode along to the side passage leading to her father's old tower- it too was collapsed. The walls there were lined with claw marks, carving jagged lines across stone and tearing sconces off of their hinges.

The more pragmatic revelation that she only needed to search a quarter of the space she'd been expecting to was enough to distract her, and she gladly welcomed that.

Eventually, she came across an isolated alcove. A silver chandelier hung just outside. The light that it cast splayed out the shadow of their family's crest onto the frayed carpet winding down the hall.

It blurred and swayed over her eyes when she marched up to the double doors. Grandiose, imposing slabs of oak.

Her fingers paused as they splayed out against the wood, supple skin prickling against the fissures in the surface. The nail of her left index finger traced the wavy line carved by one of many cracks, scraping away a clot of dust with it.

 _Oh, Marian. What happened?_

She could've asked that earlier. Should've. Maybe it would've saved her from making the trip she was right now.

Her hands tightened against the doors, splinters brushing against her taut palms.

Or maybe the answers Marian had would've just spurred her to do come down here even more.

She pushed, and the doors parted with a bellowing groan.

Her arms fell back down to her side, the creases of exertion drawn over her face disappearing into the stoic porcelain mask settling in its place. A flickering flame in the distant corner of the room cast a somber haze over the worn walls and floor. A single table sat in the middle, barely illuminated by that dying fireplace. A map was sprawled over its length, the frayed parchment suffocating under towers of tomes and papers that had no shelves on the barren walls to house them.

An empty coffin stood lonely vigil to her right. The velvet sheets that lined the inside were scratched and torn, a few tatters openly hanging out like decaying flesh from a draugr's maw.

A chair creaked by the fireplace. The short screech that it released ground on her ears like the agonizing wail of a dying beast.

The rising silhouette of her father blotted out what little light remained from the flames.

The doors behind her squealed on rusted hinges and scraped across the floor as they sagged back into their positions. There was the faintest murmur of a thud as they locked into place.

Her father did not move, keeping his back towards her. His cape draped down his shoulder like a curtain, obscuring his towering form in a veil of shadow.

She stepped around to the side, brushing past her father's coffin and angling around the table. The firelight illuminated his bearded jaw and gaunt cheeks, tongues of orange glimmering blankly in his eyes as he stared into the fireplace.

Her tongue felt like a sack of bricks resting in her parched mouth. For a while, she waited for him to say something- _anything_ , even if it would just be an excuse for her to snipe back with an accusation. It would have been so much easier.

It would have been easier, also, to pretend she didn't see that framed painting resting over the fireplace, hidden behind unused candles as it was. It, like everything else, was coated in a thin layer of dust, the colors faded by grains of grey. But it was still intact. And even at a distance, obscured by dimness, it was impossible not to see the brush strokes coalescing into her father and mother's faces.

Her boots clacked against the uncarpeted stone floor as she treaded her way over to her father's right side, his posture unmoving even by the time she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

A long stretch of silence hung between them, punctuated by the crackle of flames dancing on desiccated wood.

It was hard not to think of days that were too far gone, standing like this. A part of her wished she could lose herself in those memories entirely, not just have them nipping mockingly at her thoughts in the stark reality of the present.

But she wished a lot of things were different.

She reached out with her left hand, gently easing aside the unlit candles resting on top of the fireplace, brushing her fingers over the painting behind them. She touched upon the dusted glass pressed over the portrait underneath, clearing away grainy grey splotches with gentle strokes.

Her father's jaw, strong in Nordic features and square-set, was unbearded. Her mother's cheeks were full, angling elegantly down to her painted lips. And the eyes- a mere grassy green in her mother's, the vividness of them in life impossible to capture with paint. Icy blue for her father's. Pale and cold, dulled by the ages.

She'd almost forgotten what they were like.

"You looked so happy back then," she stated, dead heart heavy as she noticed how she herself was not depicted in the portrait.

"Looks can be deceiving. And artists do not portray reality precisely."

She drew a finger over the brush strokes along their lips. They were broad, quickly painted, but bore a subtle upward curvature that made the smiles they coalesced into feel more real than anything she'd seen as of late.

"I suppose, though, you could call it happiness. Contentness, perhaps. We had that portrait commissioned to commemorate the acquisition of this property."

She drew her hand back, a soft drift of grey peeling off from the glass cover in the wake of her movement.

Her hair bristled. Her fingers grazed on the sides of candles, their surfaces coarse and smudged over with oily flakes.

"The castle's come a long way since then."

"The castle alone was never enough for us. Least of all yourself."

He wasn't wrong. But then again, she was _born_ there- for nearly two decades, the castle was all she knew. Being locked in her tower for hours a day- books piling her desk, Mother standing stern vigil over her shoulder. Teaching her of the nature of the world, the practical and theoretical.

She learned of what a liver was before she knew how to make her own bed. She could list off the alchemical properties of cow liver extract, along with the precise steps to distill the most potent concentration from a fresh specimen by heart, but couldn't do up her own hair in the morning.

…

That had been one of Marian's responsibilities.

…

"Was that why you took me on your hunting trips?" The sound of her own words sent the smallest of quivers down her skin. She hated how the sting of warm salt uncontrollably swelled behind her eyes.

"Indeed. Valerica wasn't particularly keen on the idea. I had my own doubts as well, to be sure. But I knew it would be better than letting you run amok in the undercroft and aqueducts."

"You knew about that?" A tear slipped past the strained lid beneath her right eye, perhaps shaken loose from the bizarre chuckle rumbling in her throat.

"Marian expressed concern with smelling raw sewage in your hair when she bathed you."

"Ah."

The back-and-forth tapered off after that. Serana took the opportunity to draw in a steadying breath, laden with trembles as it was. She also lifted a hand to wipe away the thin stream of fluid running down her cheek and from her nose, angling her head away from her father and the fire when she realized the motion wasn't as subtle as she'd been hoping.

Mucus churned and bubbled in the back of her nose as her nostrils flared with an influx of air. Her left hand balled into a fist, nails digging into her palms.

 _Stop it!_

She fought to keep her eyes straight, her posture firm, but she was only fooling herself if she thought her father didn't notice every second of it. He didn't say anything, didn't move, didn't shuffle. Just remained still as a statue, waiting for her to continue.

"So," she said, clearing her throat and biting back the whimper struggling to break out from her gritted teeth. "It… looks as though you haven't been out as often anymore."

"No."

"Why not?"

One second passed. Two. She swallowed, a lump of phlegm and saline fluid dragging down into her shriveled belly. She drew in another breath, a quiet gargle rumbling behind her tongue as she did so.

When her father still did not respond, she pressed onwards, burning tears swirling in her veins with blood.

"You said it yourself, didn't you? The castle's not enough."

 _But it's still home,_ she heard a voice echoing in the back of her mind. Constraining as it had been to spend every hour of her childhood within it, exciting- terrifying- satisfying- as it had been to finally set foot outside it- at the end of the day, in the cold of the night, there was no place she would've rather been.

And here she was again.

Squalid. Decrepit.

Lonely.

Uncaring of the sting beneath her eyelids now, she turned to face her father.

Still he stood, staring into the flames, a framed portrait of happier days hidden just out of his sight- was she just imagining things, or did she see a flash of hesitation, the slightest softening in his hard-edged brow?

His voice betrayed no such qualities.

"Do you remember our first hunt?"

The tundras. The sky, clear and crisp as glass touched by the wintry sea.

"Vaguely."

"You had trained with your bow, a few days prior to our arrival in the plains."

Instructed by the same voice that spoke to her now. Stony, flattened out with a cold sternness, easy to mistake for dispassion. The child that she was at the time had found it to be such a jarring difference from the one that came from a wide smile, often accompanied by basso laughter at the dinner table.

Though she supposed that as time went on, she only grew more used to it.

"You were no stranger to the weapon by the time we spotted our quarry."

Yes. The warm glow of orange bathing its spotted fur, miniscule ice crystals in the air around it glimmering like stars in broad daylight.

"Do you remember why you missed?"

Those wild doe eyes had shot up and fixed on her. Rooted her into the earth, took the chilled breath out of her lungs. When she made to loose the arrow, the beast had darted off before the bowstring had even snapped forward.

"I hesitated."

"You never had a clean shot to begin with. You should have waited. Hidden in the cold dirt, endured the biting winds and scratching blades of grass. Dragged yourself along, stalking it. For hours, days. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike."

He trailed off again, clasping his hands behind his back, cape sweeping a curtain of shadow across the walls.

"You didn't answer the question."

He sighed, the stone mask laid over his lips finally breaking.

"It is not an answer easily put into words."

"Well I'd rather you at least _try_ , rather than just dredge up some pointless anecdote. I rememberthose days well enough as is."

She trailed off, a selective trickle of those memories dribbling into her thoughts.

"There were happy days. When we were more than just content."

The garden in particular came to mind. Dark green leaves entwining with velvety purple flowers, crowning the grey and brown mounds of mushrooms that sprouted from the moist dirt. A long way from the dyed red drapes and gleaming embroidery adorning the halls of the castle.

Her mother loved it. Serana had as well, but she wasn't the one who pondered over what strain of flower would best complement the juniper tree for three nights, who carefully crafted the ponds and seeded them with marshland reeds just well enough for the torchbugs to dance around them in the dark.

For her mother, it had been as much a work of art as a place to relax, or a bountiful source of alchemy reagents. Serana supposed the moondial was just another one of those touches- cast in a humble pewter hue, so as to not blot out the earthy richness of the garden.

"Even now, you think too much in mortal terms. I had thought you returned because you had finally come to see."

"See _what?_ I was asleep for all this time!"

At long last, her father turned his attention to her, red irises regarding her sharply.

"You are still held down by the shackles you were bound by as a mere human. Your life is not so fleeting and meaningless that you can simply choose to latch onto any stray _thing_ passing by you for a flash of satisfaction anymore."

She stared at him in silence, a chill slowly crawling up the base of her neck. He continued, stone voice only growing harsher with each word spoken.

"Family, companionship, love- all of these things must fade away in the eons that you will live for. There is no place for them in an immortal life. If you grow to rely on others, then you only set yourself up to be crippled when they either wither and die, or turn on you outright."

He spoke those last words with unmasked bitterness, his fingers splaying out and curling in strained, deliberate movements. They cast shadows of inky tendrils across the walls.

"I am where I am now, in this wasting ruin of a castle, because I failed to see that truth when I should have."

"That's bullshit," Serana snapped, the uneasy nip at her neck seeping through to her veins, unleashing a wave of tingling weightlessness over her whole body. The veil that she had purposely cast over select memories was washed away in the currents flooding her mind. "Mother left you because you were obsessed with this obscure prophecy, that damned scroll, more than your actual family!"

"I pursued it _for_ the family. For you. For Valerica. For Marian. For a vision of _us_ walking upon the earth and snow as the gods amongst mortals that we are. You think Valerica left, _betrayed_ me for something so petty as feeling unloved? No, Serana. Your mother fled because she was a coward. She _feared_ the mortals and all their fleeting armies, feared that their aimless warmongering would turn onto us – as though under the skies of darkness, they could ever hope to stand against us."

Serana could only stare at him, lips numb, throat dry. Her father continued, lines creasing across the immaculate skin of his face in a maddening focus- did he really believe what he was saying?

"She sabotaged me. Stole the scroll away and stole you away. Locked you into a dreamless sleep of eons because she feared _you_ as well."

"Me? I never wanted any of this!"

"At the time, indeed. And I was a fool to have ever convinced myself to let your mother sink her treacherous claws into you. To let you have your precious _family_ time, when she was in reality blinding you, leading you astray. But now that you have returned, you will learn, you will see, just as the entire court has. We are all the blessed children of Molag Bal, the Daedric Lord of _domination,_ not fit to hide in the shadows."

That glimmer of fervor in his eyes flickered out just as quickly as it had surged forth, the snarl clawed over his mouth receding. The stone mask of impassiveness that stared back at her was somehow even more unsettling than it had been moments earlier.

"This castle is nothing. It has always been that way. A prison for us, sheltered from the world. Valerica would've had us waste away here for an eternity."

"Father-"

"I am not your father anymore, and you are no longer my daughter. I am Lord Harkon, and you are a Lady of my court. Your deeds in returning the Elder Scroll to us, and the purity of your divine blood, is what sets you apart from the rest. Not your mortal-given blood ties," he finished coldly.

It felt as though she'd splashed with a shock of icewater, numbing her limbs, washing the rose-tinted blur out of her eyes.

"I can't believe this," she whispered, more to herself than Harkon.

"Believe what you will. But you cannot deny the truth."

The truth stared at her in a pale guise of her father, a witch-image, hair hued with dust, eyes drained of the color that she remembered.

And then Harkon turned away, looking back into the dying fireplace before him. Watching, waiting, for those limping tongues of flame to die into embers, then fade in with the ash they danced upon.


	18. Chapter 17

Serana's boots dragged on stone that she had strode over with a staccato firmness just moments earlier.

She descended into the dining hall with sinking footfalls, boot soles smacking limply against each step as though cold weights were lashed to her ankles.

She couldn't bear to walk by the archway leading to the courtyard again, couldn't bear to so much as look in the direction of the defiled heap of stone that took its place now. She slid past empty tables, the tangy scent of blood only making her shriveled stomach churn with a bloated sickness that rose up to her head in nauseating waves.

It followed, even as she lumbered out of the hall and continued down the murky route drawn in her frayed mental map.

"My Lady."

The words pierced the muffled veil ringing in her ears, the familiarity of them lost in a voice that she had not known long enough for them to feel… right.

She continued walking, suddenly aware of a different pair of footsteps trailing behind her, cracking sharply against the stone over the shuffle of her own.

They eventually overtook her, a lithe figure slithering in front of her path. She shuffled to a halt, dazingly assessing the person that was audacious enough to obstruct her at this moment.

If the man was at all bothered by her numb-stone silence, he didn't show it at all, a saccharine smile drawn over his lips, one gimlet golden and red eye sizing her up and down from beside a curtain of jet-black hair covering his other.

"I don't believe we've been properly acquainted yet. I figured a more formal introduction would be in order now that at all the commotion from your most magnificent return has settled down."

He dipped into a slight bow, his movements gentle and elegant, fingers splaying out lavishly. There was no humility to it.

"The court knows me as Lord Sarpa. Of course, that's just Sarpa to you, My Lady."

Oh. _Right._ He had been there in the dining hall.

He must've noticed the flash of recognition breaking through her porcelain skinned-mask, as his smile peeled apart into a sharp-toothed grin when he rose back up.

"You weren't around when my mother was," she observed flatly.

A lot of these faces she'd seen in the halls weren't either- but none of them had sat in the circle closest to Harkon during dinner, like this one.

"Mhmm," he hummed sweetly. "I would imagine there's many new faces for you too see as well, aren't there? There was a time I couldn't quite keep track myself, truth be told."

"Right."

"I'm sure you'll have no problem catching up. Half the court will probably be scrambling to make your acquaintance come dusk."

Seconds of silence passed, but Sarpa did not budge. She felt herself instinctively quashing the slump in her shoulders, raising her head over his just a little bit more to glare down at him.

"Was there something else you needed?"

"Why, is it not customary for you to introduce yourself in return?"

"You already know who I am." Her brows furrowed when she saw Sarpa's grin grow wider. "Now get out of my way. _Please_ ," she said, a slimy sweet venom dripping from that last word.

"Of course. It would be unwise for you to keep Lady Marian waiting." Sarpa stepped aside, bowing down slightly again and holding his arm out as though ushering her down the hall.

She should've left it at that, brushed past him and been on her way. But his mention of Marian, the upward twitch in the corners of his mouth as he spoke her name kept her rooted in place for a moment more.

 _Lady_ Marian?

"How did you know Marian was preparing my room?"

"Ah, how clumsy of me," he said, chuckling and momentarily turning his gaze downwards. "She… required some aid with carrying your sheets up. I encountered her on the way to my own quarters. This was meant to be strictly between her and I, of course, until… well."

Serana's eyes narrowed.

"That's very kind of you."

"I'm _so_ glad you think so."

A tense silence reigned following their flat exchange, Sarpa holding his supplicating posture the entire time. His hair held steady in its combed swathe, not a single errant strand breaking away to dangle before his eyes.

"It seems you would best be on your way, My Lady."

 _My Lady._

Her fingers curled, but she drew in a quiet breath, and released the tension in her fingers.

"Indeed. A… pleasure to make your acquaintance."

She gave him a curt nod before slipping past him, at the very least acknowledging that his interruption had momentarily distracted her from far more disturbing thoughts. Cleared away the haze that was clouding her mind like the murky incense drifting along the walls.

That was, of course, up until he dared to speak again.

"I do hope there's no bad blood between us regarding your mortal friend. Lord Harkon's judgement of I at first was just as harsh. I'm sure he'll be just fine."

His voice echoed down the hall from behind her, lofty with intentional mockery or numb-skulled tone deafness, she couldn't tell. It didn't really matter.

A part of her urged her to keep ploughing forward, head down. Whispered to her that this wasn't worth it.

 _Wasn't worth it._

Exactly what she'd told herself coming out from Harkon's _den._ What she'd told herself when her mother had burst into her room all that time ago.

The soles of her boots snapped to a sharp halt. Her shoulders squared against the constraining fabric of her coat and the embroidered leather pressed over it. Her neck strained, skin stretching taut up from her shoulders as she pivoted her head around.

The edges of his mouth drew up even further when she fixed her dagger-gaze upon him. His fingers flexed, his teeth shining through his lips in the candlelight.

Her own fingers began a slow, deliberate dance, snaking up the lines in her palm. Currents of magicka bubbled in the skin beneath her nails.

"You left many of us wondering just what you saw in that sad little creature…"

"I think I explained myself well enough. If you can't understand that, then I suppose that's your problem, isn't it?"

A tense silence settled amongst the haze in the hall. Sarpa's teeth receded.

"It may well become _your_ problem if the entire court cannot grasp your reasoning," he intoned.

"I'll make sure to enlighten them, then." She broke her gaze off at last, releasing the strain that had been coiling in her hands.

A wisp of flame slipped quietly out from her left palm, the fading clouds flickering dangerously close to the frayed rags of carpet trailing along the edge of the hall.

This time, Sarpa remained silent.

 **0-0-0**

Marian heaved her arms upwards, gangly limbs flowing like the thin sheet of velvet her fingers grasped. A tranquil blankness was painted over her face, her lips holding the gentlest inkling of a smile. The bedsheet fluttered down onto a starch white mattress, silky red spreading over its surface like water running across stone. Marian ran her open palms over it, graceful and wide strokes smoothing over the faint ripples that lingered.

Serana watched from the doorway, her muscles stiff, skin chafing beneath week-old garments, lip twisting underneath her front teeth. A deathly rigor weighed in her jaw.

Lavender incense wafted over to her, tendrils of white smoke skimming over the eroded walls in a serene dissonance. It stung at hairs in her nose, dry and crackling after being flushed of tear laced mucus.

It was enough to make her want to spin on her heel and leave at that moment. Marian's doe-eyed gaze, wide and startled as she looked up from her work, locked Serana in place.

"My Lady!"

Was it merely wishful thinking that she heard a grazing of excitement in the handmaiden's voice?

If it was not, then the hoarse and flat words that grated out from Serana's throat in response almost certainly snuffed it out.

"Hello, Marian."

Marian averted her gaze, turning it downwards as she bowed. "I was so concerned as to where you might've gone. I was going to leave and look for you myself but-" She seemed to catch herself, clearing her throat as she rose back up.

"In any case, your bedchamber is ready. Lady Hestla passed along a gift to commemorate your return," she added curtly, gesturing towards the nightstand. The gift in question was a sword- its blade sheathed in a scabbard of sumptuous black scales, the crossguard and hilt cast from a cold obsidian.

Serana barely saw them out of the corner of her eye.

"She expresses her great admiration for Your Grace, and dearly hopes that you find the weapon worthy of your station."

"I see. Thank you," Serana spoke softly.

"I merely bear Lady Hestla's gifts in her stead, My Lady."

"I meant thank you for cleaning my room."

"Oh. I… you are of course, welcome, My Lady."

Marian bowed again. When she rose back up, she wasted no time in making for the door.

Her back was set ramrod straight, her arms held rigidly at her sides as she strode over. Even as Serana remained there in front of the door, blocking the exit like a limp and cold pile of rubble, Marian had her gaze set firmly forward. It was as though she was peering right through Serana.

It was not much longer before she was forced to cease her dutiful march. A few more seconds of stillness passed by, her hands slowly inching away from her sides. Her petal-like lips pressed tightly together.

"W-" Serana cleared her throat at last, the stagnation in her bones shaking loose like a fine coating of dust. "Would you mind staying for a moment?"

"I- of course not, My Lady, I will stay for a moment if you wish. Is the state of the room not to your liking? My dearest apologies, I shall redouble my efforts to-"

"No, no," she cut Marian off, an uneasy weight remaining in the pits of her stomach. The raw sting of salt still lingered beneath her eyes. "I just wanted to talk."

Marian's eyebrows drooped.

"That is… a difficult request to fulfill, in light of my new duties, I am afraid."

There was a longing that glimmered in those eyes, a faint rheumy gloss that Serana had grown quite familiar with herself.

"I understand," she responded, a strange feeling of relief shattering the heavy hesitation that yet weighed on her chest _._ "I'll let you get on your way."

She shuffled away from the door, faintly trembling legs carrying her over to her chair. It remained in the corner, bleached wood laid bare, its own legs still standing despite the thin fissures running down their length. Despite her weight limply sliding down onto the seat.

It held fast, the creaks that groaned out from its structure fading quickly as she settled in. The tension in her neck slipped away, as though a knife had run through the cords holding up her head. A shaky breath escaped her lungs, the tremors reaching up to the raw lenses of her eyes.

Marian's shadow lingered on the ground, stretched over stone like a flash-frozen stream of water.

"I hear many things around the castle," she spoke after a long silence, an even wispier tenderness to her voice. "Things that Lord Harkon does not."

Her shadow slid away, melding into the dark peering out of the hallway outside. The door clicked shut. And then Marian's shadow returned.

"It is not an enviable position to be in, My Lady. I am obliged to relay every word that comes across my ears to his."

In the back of her mind, she could almost envision Marian standing where she had just moments before. Listless in the musty firelight, enduring endless stretches of silence.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Polished boots of black leather clacked across the stone. They paused at the edge of Serana's bed.

She looked up, watching as Marian ran her fingers over the immaculate red of the sheets she had splayed out.

"May I have a seat, My Lady?"

"Go ahead."

She plopped down on the mattress with the same grace Serana had when she lumbered into her chair.

They sat like that for a few quiet moments, the wind outside drumming faintly against the walls.

Marian broke it. Her voice, so tender as it was, rumbled like thunder to Serana's ears.

"Do you remember the oath that I swore to you and your family?"

"I'm not sure if I even born when that happened," she responded. "And if I was, I certainly don't think I cared at the time."

"Fair enough," said Marian with a chuckle. "It was quite a dry and verbose matter. Lady Valerica insisted I sign a document and all- I didn't even know how to spell my own name, let alone write at that time."

" _Really?"_

"Of course. I was raised in a small mill on the Hjaal River, where my parents were the sole owners. There wasn't any time for such matters as teaching me literacy when there was busywork to be done."

"I had no idea."

"Yes. Lady Valerica was quick to rectify that."

"I can't imagine she was too pleased about that."

"Your mother showed her affection in… her own way."

"Oh?"

A ghost of a smile moved over Marian's lips. "In a manner you grew quite familiar with during your own studies."

"I'm not sure if I would've considered that affection," Serana responded with a chuckle. It spread to Marian, her hand instinctively moving to cover her mouth. To stifle the toothy grin that her smile had blossomed into, muffle the laughter that slipped off her tongue.

It swirled together with the muted wail of twisted echoes grazing on the window.

"How'd you end up with us then?" It felt like such a strange question to ask- but she supposed, in a way, that Marian had just always _been there_. Since they day she was birthed.

She found herself trying to picture Marian in her younger years for a moment, in that fuzzy span of time where the handmaiden hadn't quite grown into a woman- but she came up empty, not even able to recall a hazy silhouette.

"The same way a lot of orphans in Skyrim find their way in life."

"Oh."

"Living in the wilderness like that had many risks, risks I was woefully oblivious to at the time. I was lucky enough to have survived."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all happened so long ago now. I'm not sure if I ever quite got over the grief- if that's even possible- but I think I've… accepted it."

Marian absentmindedly ran a hand through her hair, the soft upward curve in her lips enduring for the moment. "Lord Harkon found me when he was out hunting. Out in the steppes overlooking the Reach. My clothes were in rags, I was starving, and the rains had not been kind to my body. He took me in."

Her fingers ran along the braids of black wrapping above her ears.

"He had taken down an elk and rabbit just earlier in the day. The rabbit was for food. The elk he said was mostly for sport- but I learned later that Lady Valerica often found use for the organs and antlers. He ensured I was well fed that night he found me."

"Was my mother there with him?"

"No. He was alone."

"Oh."

Marian's hands fell back into her lap.

"Lady Valerica was quite incensed when he took me with him back to the castle, in fact. Not the most pleasant of surprises for her, but… she came around. With some convincing."

A stiff silence fell between them. The flash of brightness over Marian's expression waned. Her fingers strained against the black fabric of her garments.

"I swore that I would serve the best interests of the family until the end of my days. That did not change when Lady Valerica passed down her blood to me, after the ritual."

"I understand."

Their eyes met at last. "You've been troubled ever since you returned."

"I didn't realize it was that obvious," Serana said dryly, Marian's words nonetheless resonating with her still heart in terrifying tremors.

Their speech tapered off again, but neither broke away from the gaze that they shared. Marian's fingers wrung themselves, gripping each other as though squeezing the water out of a soaked washcloth.

At last, her eyes dipped downwards, her head bowing.

"I swore that I would serve you, just as I serve your father. I will not speak of what you say to me now to him- or anyone else."

She said it with such tranquility, in spite of the unease visibly gripping her lithe body.

"I… would only ask the same favor of you in return."

Serana breathed, feeling as though a weight were expelled from her chest at last. She opened her mouth, intending to give her thanks, her breathless assurance- but the dam that had been holding back the turmoil churning within her dead heart finally seemed to burst, flooding out in soft tremors.

"He's gone insane."

Marian's brow softened, her fingers settling into a steepled position in her lap.

"I spoke to him, just earlier. I couldn't believe what I was hearing from him."

"What did he say?"

Razor flecks of ice and snow strafed across the window in a muted assault beyond the thick maroon drapes cast over it.

"He doesn't even see me as his daughter anymore," she whispered.

The thinnest slivers of white light peeked in from beneath the curtains. Even dulled by the snow, it cast harsh rays onto the floor.

"He's just _consumed_ by this prophecy. Nothing else matters to him now."

Her fingers curled, gripping the thin fabric of her breeches. "I don't know what I was expecting, coming back here. I always had a feeling something was wrong, before all this- just… nothing to this extent."

"You couldn't have known," Marian replied softly.

Serana shook her head, hands reaching up to her cheeks. They turned their agitated grip onto the faintly salt-crusted flesh there instead, tracing down her jaw.

Her nails twisted in the skin behind her ears. "Maybe… if I had just seen the signs earlier…"

A cold grip laid itself on her wrists. Delicate fingers crept gingerly up her palms, beckoning them away. Marian knelt before her, a steely firmness gripping the soft amber around her irises. "It would not have helped," she murmured, the supple tones of her voice easing the tension in Serana's arms. "Lady Valerica and Lord Harkon bothwere too firmly set on their own goals for you to have turned them away."

"I should have _tried. Something."_

"It would not have changed the outcome."

Serana's fingers fell away from her head, white veins streaking over the surface of her nails. Slowly, Marian eased them down.

"Sometimes we must simply accept things for what they are. If we push too hard in a bid to make things better… just look at Lord Harkon."

Serana allowed her arms to fall as Marian released her grip, standing up and backing away. The handmaiden's hands clasped before her, shoulders bent inwards ever so slightly.

"I feel your pain, My Lady. I think to myself often if I could have done anything to change it- if I still can. But I'm just a handmaiden."

Her knees bent, figure weightlessly sliding back down onto the bed. Her hair bobbed, catching some stray strands of light shining in through the frosted glass.

Silence descended over them once more, their eyes cast down onto the stone floor. Limbs limp with eons of exhaustion. Marian let her hands fall away from her lap entirely, palms resting on the velvet sheets.

Serana's held on to her knees.

"It's not just about making things better," she said, a husky dryness rumbling in her throat. From the edge of her periphery, she saw Marian head perk up. Watching her.

"My father wasn't content with everything we already had- he threw it away, pursuing a vague and grandiose dream, a possibility of some _thing_ with impacts too far beyond what he could comprehend. _He_ did this. Not my mother, not me, not you. And not one of us stood up against him when we should've."

"There was nothing we could do."

"You keep saying that, but how do you know for certain? My mother was as much the head of the family as he was. The court would've listened to her. But instead, she ran away." A bitterness creeped into her voice at those last few words.

"That's not fair to her."

"We kept telling ourselves it wasn't worth doing something about, or we couldn't do anything about it," Serana continued, ignoring Marian's half-hearted protest. "Maybe that was true- but now we have to live with the fact that we let everything fall apart around us. Wasting away in this mess."

Her own gaze remained glued to the ground, watching Marian's boots press flat against the stone. Serana anticipated backlash, a defiant riposte to her biting words- she pressed her own lips flat, waiting for it.

She was not prepared for the ghostly whisper that grazed on her ears instead.

"I fear the end is coming."

Serana looked up.

"There are rumors around the court of an ancient order of vampire hunters rallying in The Rift. Nobody seems to have any concern about that at all- even after learning Lokil's entire _warband_ was wiped out. How many of them do you think there are? How many more do you think would have flocked to their ranks by now already, after hearing of the destruction Lokil wrought upon their lands? Fura and Garan sit at their tables, advocating for the culling of our own kind. The 'impure' scattered throughout the mainland, offspring wrought from _their_ incursions over the centuries to begin with. Lord Harkon rarely ever sets foot outside his crumbling study for anything. Vingalmo and Orthjolf care more for competing for his attention than actually advising him."

Marian's eyes glared back at her, her hands visibly trembling within her lap. "My duties are the only thing I can even bear to focus on now. And you want to tell me that this is all happening, that the entire clan is driving itself into the open arms of Oblivion because _I_ didn't do anything?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what do you mean?" Asked Marian, a hysterical desperation tremoring through her body. "You speak in sweeping statements and incomprehensible riddles, just as your mother and father. I… I-"

She trailed off, her tranquil mask shattering as she gripped her shivering arms with quaking hands. There was a hot flare of anger that surged in Serana's veins- a sudden rush of indignancy, that Marian would dare to compare her to Harkon when her eyes were finally opening-

…

The feeling evaporated as quickly as it came.

"I- I don't want to see you fall down the same path that they did."

The adrenaline flushed out of her veins, but she found herself rising up instead of slumping back down.

She strode over to Marian, the handmaiden's speech rapidly devolving into hitching breaths with fragments of words spilling out of her lips.

Serana knelt down, but rather than merely taking a hold of Marian's wrists, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders. The tremors that rocked Marian's body raced through to her own, running down to her bones. Marian's tears grazed against her cheek.

As Serana rested her chin on Marian's shoulder, she couldn't stop herself from reflecting on how much easier this was without a heartbeat pulsing against her skin.

A shaky sigh escaped her lips, her eyes closing as she shut out the renewed thoughts bubbling up against her mind. Her grip on Marian tightened.

"I'm sorry."

 **0-0-0**

She felt as though she could fall asleep in Marian's embrace, after her crying had faded away and her tears had dried. After she had flushed the mucus out of her nostrils with a handkerchief and wiped away the streams that had slipped onto Serana's coat. Gods only knew she needed the rest.

But she pulled away, a chilling steeliness having taken hold of her muscles. She looked Marian in the eyes, their faces mere inches from touching.

"I'm not going to follow in my father's footsteps. Or the court's."

Marian nodded, her lips scrunching together.

"But I can't just sit by and let them drag us down with them. And deep down you know just as well as I do that doing nothing at this point isn't the right answer."

"But I can't _do_ anything," she repeated, her whisper hoarse. "I have no leverage. I have no magickal prowess. I cannot hope to stand against them in any capacity."

"Then come with me."

"Wh- and go _where?"_

"Anywhere but here," Serana said firmly, despite the newly unearthed doubts swirling in her mind. "I can't take on the whole court myself, just as the clan can't take on all of Tamriel on its own."

Marian's eyelids sagged.

"You want to run away," she stated, her posture deflating at the sudden revelation. "Just as your mother did."

"No. I'm not leaving you alone like she did."

She shook her head.

"Marian, listen. The first thing you and I need to do is _get out_ of here. We can come up with a plan later."

"You're lying," she hissed out, unable to even so much as face Serana even with her eyes squeezed shut. "You don't care if the clan burns down anymore. You just want to be out of the fire by the time it overtakes them."

"Even if it came to that, staying here and dying with the rest wouldn't do anyone any good."

Serana freed one of her hands from behind Marian's back, sliding it out to her front tentatively. Marian did not pull away as Serana wiped away the fresh tears streaming down her cheek.

"We'll travel light. Just you, me, and the Elder Scroll."

The ebony glint of Hestla's gift caught her eye.

"The sword too. It'll serve us well for a while, then we can sell it off for a hefty sum of gold once we're in the clear."

A whimpering grimace overtook Marian's face, her gritted teeth showing through her lips.

"We can use the waste chute to get into the undercroft. That's how mother and I slipped away the first time around- nobody would want to be around there normally, even less so during daytime. I'm not as adept as my mother is in Alteration magick, but I learned enough to know how we can break our fall. Nobody will suspect it."

"Do you not know of the exile lurking in the undercroft?" She said from between her teeth.

"Better than you know," Serana responded, a melancholy briefly resurging. "But it's more doable than rushing out through the front door."

She freed her other hand from behind Marian, using it to set her face straight towards her own. "We can do this."

Marian's eyes opened. Her lips closed, a lump visibly sliding down her throat as she gulped. Slowly, she reached up to Serana's wrists, grasping them again with her cold fingers.

"I can't."

Her fingers grazed against air as Marian pried her hands away from her cheeks. "I'm just a handmaiden," she repeated. "My place is here. In the castle. If you bring me with you, I will only slow you down."

"I-"

"And if you fail to escape, then that won't do anyone any good."

Serana knelt there in silence, gazing at Marian in desperation. Marian did not budge.

Her lips fell open, a half-conjured plea dying on her tongue as soon as it met the cold air.

She couldn't shake it anymore.

The guilt.

The last time she'd tried to play benevolent- try to help out a mortal down on his luck- she'd ended up damning him.

She couldn't let it happen again to Marian.

She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath.

"You stay safe, okay?"

"I will be fine, My Lady. I have survived well enough for all these centuries past- this will be no different."

She rose from the bed, Serana following in suit. She felt hands trail along her body, hands smoothing out the creases in her coat like the sheets on her bed.

Marian's boots clacked against the stone as she marched over to the nightstand, tucking the Elder Scroll under one arm and the sword under her other. She returned seconds later, serene blankness set into her porcelain visage once more. She set down the sword briefly, using both hands to ease the leather strap anchored to the Elder Scroll over Serana's shoulders.

Serana remained still as Marian bent down to pick up the blade, finally offering it to her, with the sheathed flat of it resting in her palms.

She took it without further ceremony, parting from Marian reluctantly.

The handmaiden seemed to notice, ushering her over to the door herself when Serana still did not move after several more moments.

The door creaked open on rusted hinges.

"I'll come back for you," Serana whispered. "I promise."

"You need not promise anything, My Lady. You should be on your way. I shall clean your bed again, and act as though none of this transpired."

Marian made to close the door but seemed to hesitate for a moment. They shared one last gaze before she pushed down on the aging wood.

And then, as the door locked in place with a dull thud, they were alone once again.

 **0-0-0**

She didn't allow the somberness to weigh down her feet as she made her way to her destination this time. Mentally though, each step she took felt as though it was grinding through a wall of sludge. The halls were entirely silent now, even the incense candles that littered the braziers along the walls of some paths having burned out into gently smoking lumps of wax.

Even so, she eyed the shadows warily, one hand reluctantly hovering over the sword sheathed at her hip the entire time.

She'd never had to kill one of her kin before. The thought that the possibility she'd have to do just that for the first time in her life barely even left a ripple in the slow churn of thoughts within her mind.

Too much was at stake now for hesitation.

The metal gate to the cattle pens screeched open on its hinges, every inch she pushed it seeming to elicit a higher pitch squeal.

The cattle that laid beyond barely even looked up from their cages.

Serana marched past them, carefully avoiding the few empty gazes that had been set blankly towards the door before she'd entered.

She blew a breath out her nose as she faced the grimy trapdoor leading into the waste chute, a few bones with scraps of flesh still clinging to them strewn around the lever. She gave them a wide berth, clomping both soles of her boots down onto the oaken slabs. They creaked slightly under her weight.

Her right hand rested on the lever, and she closed her eyes for a moment, assured that it was safe enough to do so. Taking those brief few seconds to wipe herself of any lingering doubts was arguably even more important.

Her fingers flexed around the lever's bare metal handle, scraping off flakes of decade-old fat that crusted its surface.

The plunge would be short enough that the effects of Slowfall would last even if she cast it now. She just had to make sure she did it _right._

Maybe it was better that Marian stayed behind. Her mother had at least been able to count on her to support herself with a spell cast- having to take of someone else as well would be… difficult.

…

She breathed, opening her eyes, and let the cold air flush through her veins as the weight of her entire body seemed to evaporate from her very flesh and bone. Even the burden of the Elder Scroll eased off her shoulders in that moment, leaving her in a state of floating clarity.

Yes.

It was for the best.

With a mighty tug of her right arm, the motion feeling practically effortless, she pulled down on the lever.


	19. Chapter 18

Her boots crunched softly against moist bone. Her knees bent ever so slightly, the featherlike impact of her landing dispersing through her body in mere seconds.

And then the smell hit.

A musty haze of salt overlaid with a tattered sheen of putrefying flesh snaked into her nostrils, bristling against the hairs in her nostrils like her boots on the pile of refuse that she quickly scrambled off of. Her steps squelched in a mire of wet marrow, swimming up to the surface of the shallow water flooding the dim room like scum bubbling out of a pot.

The crust of mud and dirt that had slipped through Serana's boots in the marshes days ago chafed with a newfound vigor between her toes. It was impossible not to envision the particles prickling against her skin as shards of bone, spearing through the wet soles of her boots.

It didn't slow her stride one bit.

Her keen eyes traced along the ceiling, running over the grime-smeared archways which stood above the filth beneath her. One opened into a shadowy maw that wound deeper into the stone. Another spilled out into an open tunnel, the sound of rushing water faintly audible in the dark that laid beyond.

 _There it is._

She sucked in a deep breath, heedless of the foul miasma which swarmed her senses. She needed to draw in whatever air she still could into her lungs- once she was within the current rushing out to the open sea, there wouldn't be much opportunity to breathe at all.

She'd learned that the hard way the first time around.

But then there was something that punched through it all- a sliver amongst the grotesque melange of smells, a splash of bright red on the liquefying brown. A churn in her stomach which _growled_ instead of recoiling. It was a smell that awakened a sharpness in her teeth that she'd not felt for what seemed like days.

It was still fresh. Tangy and musky with the heat of a human's blood, spiced over with a diluted inkling of elven scent.

She froze mid-stride, fingers growing cold.

 _It's too late,_ she tried to tell herself.

That scent came from an open wound. Freshly spilledblood.

There was a chance that Cedric was still alive. The scent was still faint, a trickle winding down into the stone halls behind her. Behind her escape route.

There was a far larger chance that by the time she traced down the stream of blood, she'd find nothing but a mangled corpse.

It… wasn't worth it.

…

…

Her hands curled into fists.

She spun on her heel. Magicka surged through her veins in an overwhelming concoction with rushing adrenaline. Murky streaks of soiled water lashed against her breeches as her legs kicked through the mire with a newfound urgency.

Her nostrils flared, the wispy trail of Cedric's scent splashing over the darkness as though it were vivid enough to carve into her vision. Lumps of marrow splattered over solid stone as she took off out of the mire in a dead sprint.

The waft of odor that snaked up from that splotches of fresh waste wasn't enough to blot out the blazing scent that wound down the hall.

She darted off, musty air blowing into her open nose. One of her hands unfurled, currents of magickal energy bubbling under the surface of her fingers. Her other rested on the hilt of the sword sheathed at her waist.

 _Hang in there. I'm coming for you._

 **0-0-0**

It wasn't long before she found the actual blood trail. Splotches of vivid red, barely spreading larger than the tips of her fingers, dotted the grey stone. Thin lines connected the sparsely scattered dots, winding down to an enclosed staircase to her left.

She strained her hearing as she clamored down, listening for the slightest disturbance in the dark above the din of her own footsteps. Her breaths echoed huskily in her head, the sprinkles of dust crumbling down from the eroding stone overhead punctuating each step she took.

The moment her boots touched down on flat stone again, her ears pricked up. A muffled rush of water surged along the left wall of the alcove she found herself in, the rumbling roar audible even through thick layers of brick.

She steeled her senses even further as she dashed under a fallen pillar to her right, then over a pile of rubble to continue following the string of crimson strewn over the dust and debris.

The ceiling fell away, rising up from being only a few heads above her to reaching up into a towering abyss. The walls splayed out to her sides, stretching into a wide hall that bellowed with water rushing through a myriad of unseen sluices.

Serana skidded to halt, dust scraping against her boots. She braced herself against a worn pillar as her eyes momentarily darted over the gaping tunnels that burrowed into the sides of the hall.

Cedric's trail wound into one tunnel then sprang out of another. Then another, on the opposite wall- and again it went, the streaks of red running deeper and wetter with each line she traced, erupting out of the shadows like water from a fissure.

She gulped, taking a steadying breath as she dashed out towards an opening on the left, zipping by three others in the process.

The scent grew stronger, so undeniably rich with musk.

As she slipped into the tunnel opening, disappearing into the shadows as though the wall had swallowed her, she became distinctly aware of the fact that it wasn't just her breathing echoing in her ears now.

The stone heaved with bestial panting, snapped at her with snarling barks. A few more steps, and she could hear the pitter-patter of paws racing across the ground. Splashing through shallow blood.

Her hand slipped away from her sword's hilt, reaching for the worn moonstone handle of her dagger.

She saw the death hound's eyes before anything else, red droplets bleeding out from yet another side tunnel in the wall. Her pace did not falter, even as it raced headlong at her with a frostbitten maw hanging open, clouds of ice crystals streaming out around the mottled tongue that dangled underneath it.

A flame sprung to life in her hands. The flickering orange light that it cast smeared over the decaying muscle of its front legs, the skin on its back stretched taut over its spine. Its teeth glimmered with red as its jaws snapped open, lunging up at her.

She stabbed forwards with her dagger at the crux of its lunge, expertly snaking her hand around its gaping maw and twisting the rest of her body so that its snout barely even grazed against her other shoulder. The moonstone edge flayed through layers of rigid flesh, driving deeper into the hound's skull as its oncoming momentum only pushed the dagger further. A choked whimper left its maw when Serana, without so much as breaking her stride, ripped the dagger free.

Its emaciated corpse landed in a limp heap behind her, its bones scraping against stone from beneath the thin layers of skin stretching over them. The silence that followed the noise of its impact was enough to assure Serana that it was dealt with.

But the panting and barking did not cease. The sounds swirled around her in the darkness, muffled b and spreading through dozens of unseen tunnels winding through the walls. It became harder to tell them apart from her own erratic breathing the further she ran.

She gripped her dagger tightly, keeping the flame in her left hand dimmed to barely a fluttering leaf within her palm. She couldn't trust herself to avoid bathing the whole path stretched before her in fire like this, from scorching away the thin red trail lacing that she had latched on to. It would have to be a final measure to take.

She only hoped she didn't run into the whole pack of hounds at once.

The trail slipped around another corner, and she followed in suit, boots clomping over the fading traces of red.

She kept running right up until the blood ran out.

It was a dead end. A sheer wall stood before her, the blood trail not even snaking up to its stony feet before tapering off.

Her body heaved, eyes darting over the scraps that were scattered over the stone. A few strips of fur, the scraggly brown fibres of them soaked through and ripped from days of travelling in rain. A chipped sword wrought from what seemed to be silver laid next to those fur scraps, its pristine blade shining in the firelight, its handle steeped in red.

But no flesh. No bone. Not nearly enough blood loss for a human like Cedric to have died- if anything, looking at how the trail had tapered off entirely, it seemed as though he'd actually managed to stem the bleeding.

But where was he now?

Her breathing grew faster as she realized the hounds were growing closer, their own breaths morphing into growls. The flame in her hand flared, and she made to pivot around to ready herself for the encroaching threat.

She stopped when the firelight illuminated an unlit torch sconce jutting out of the wall. Her eyes immediately caught onto it- the iron fittings bore only a smattering of rust, and the wooden stalk of the torch was smeared over in bloody fingerprints.

Serana sheathed her dagger, keeping the flame in her other hand aimed down the hallway. Their growls grew louder. She could almost hear the snapping of ravenous jaws echoing with them.

With her now free hand, she grabbed the torch, and yanked down.

A metallic thud resounded from somewhere in the walls, and she heard the telltale scrape of stone against stone behind her. A dim light descended on the walls, and she turned her gaze from its vigil to glance over her shoulder.

And there he was. Staring back at her like a doe caught in the plains, pressed up against an alcove, torchlight flickering over his icy blue eyes.

"Cedric!"

She began backpedaling towards the room before he could respond, setting her sight straight again when the oncoming surge of slobbering snarls reached a crescendo. A stream of fire erupted from her fingertips, engulfing the two beady red eyes at the forefront of the pack bearing down on her. Their bodies, flames dancing upon their bones, writhed and skidded over the ground, faint traces of liquefying white-hot flesh splattering on the stone as the hounds behind them tumbled into the same inferno.

"Can you close the door from inside there!?"

"Y-yes- Sera, is that-"

"Wait until I'm inside!" She exclaimed through gritted teeth, snuffing out the flame in her one hand and raising the arm to shield her eyes from the incandescent white while her other reached for her dagger.

One step back. Two steps back.

She withdrew her dagger just in time to catch one of the hounds, flames still peeling at its skin, soaring over the burning hulks of its kin at her. This time, she lashed out blindly, leaping backwards in the same motion, away from the now-burning teeth that gnashed at her from melting gums. The moonstone blade sunk through the softened muscle of its jaw effortlessly before lodging inside bone. Tongues of flame lapped up the length of the dagger, tickling at her nails.

She released her grip on it without a second thought, pivoting on her heel entirely and leaping over the last few strides between her and Cedric.

"Close it!"

She nearly collided with him as he launched off his perch from the wall, dashing over to the other end of the small cubic room and yanking down on a metal lever.

The slab door slid shut behind Serana with a definitive shudder, the snarls of some surviving hounds still snapping at them from beyond the inches of stone.

She could hardly hear her own breaths, heavy and ragged as she bent over with hands on her knees.

When she steadied herself enough to look up, she found Cedric pressed up against the wall again, pale blue eyes still wide in incredulity.

"Miss me?" She all but rasped, a wide and toothy smile splitting open her lips. She didn't mind the feeling of her fangs gnashing against each other this time.

"I- by the gods, more than you know," Cedric said through breathless laughter. "Oh, Sera, I… I didn't think I'd see you again."

Adrenaline and magicka still surging through her veins in an exhilarating rush, she allowed a laugh to slip out of her lungs as well. She held her position for a while longer, leaning back against the stone for balance as she greedily sucked in air.

"I thought I could do it for a moment, I really did," he continued. "It was like that something which was hounding me this whole time finally gave me clarity, a sense of purpose-" He trailed off, eyes darting nervously past Serana to the now-wall behind her. "-but… well…"

"Cedric," she said as she steadied herself, her mouth receding into a more reserved smile. "I'm just glad you're alive."

She stood up to her full height, rising just over his forehead as she strode over and wrapped her arms around him. The warmth of his flesh and thunderous pulse of his heart soothed her frayed nerves. "I'm sorry I pulled you into this," she murmured, chin resting on the nape of his neck.

"You came back for me though," he whispered back, trembling hands slowly trailing up her back in return. His fingers rested awkwardly over the Elder Scroll and the straps binding it to her, but it didn't make the moment any less for her.

He was alive. By the Gods, he was still alive.

Her eyelids flickered, as though she were ready to finally grant her body the rest that it ached for.

The muffled barks and scratches on stone behind her snapped her out of it.

"Yes. That won't be worth much if we don't get out of here though."

She gave his shoulders one last squeeze before pulling away, eyes scanning over the room. "Is there another way out of this room?"

"I… think so," Cedric ventured, pointing at another lever to Serana's right. "I didn't try pulling this one yet, but I'd guess it opens that door over there," he said, pointing to her left at another slab of stone. Illuminated in the torchlight, it was easy to see the outline of a sliding door hewn into the wall there. "I figured it would be safer to just wait in here for a while. It didn't look like they'd be able to reach the lever outside- or even recognize it for what it was. They didn't bite me too deep, and I figured they'd wander off eventually after the trail went cold."

He held up his right wrist, the arm bare of its sleeve- it had been stripped off, the furs that remained having been chained around his wrist.

Clever.

"You did good," she said. He practically beamed at her in response, a peculiar shade of red seeming to spread over his cheeks. One of her eyebrows quirked up instinctively, but she didn't waste any time questioning him about it. Something else buzzed at the back of her mind.

A little voice nipping at her ears, telling her that this passage had never been here before- that _she_ , of all people, would've found it all those eons ago.

She shook her head slightly, answering Cedric's tilt of his head with a dismissive chuckle.

Her eyes drifted back over to the door Cedric had pointed out, her mind flipping over as she tried to recall the route she had taken to get there.

"That could be just what we need actually," she concluded aloud. "Our best chance of escaping is through the waterway used for waste disposal- I heard some others through the walls on my here as well, but they all eventually run right out into ocean. The water should mask any scent we leave behind, and the old docks are practically right next to where they exit. It's daytime, so if we hurry, we might be able to just grab a boat and get out of here."

"Wait, we're… leaving the castle?"

She nodded, pausing in her racing train of thought as she remembered that he didn't know the decision she'd come to yet. "Coming back here was a mistake. I wish I'd realized that sooner." One step was all it took to put her in arm's reach of the lever.

Though the hounds continued to snap at them from behind the other door, she held still on the lever, taking a moment to address Cedric directly. "Are you ready?"

"Say no more, Sera. I trust you."

"Good."

 **0-0-0**

Her instinct hadn't been wrong. They passed by countless side passages, Cedric's step often faltering whenever she dragged him by one of those shadowy mouths in the wall, but it wasn't long before her ears picked up the basso roar of rushing water again.

She felt Cedric's grip tighten around her, and his pace did not slow as they dashed past an arched passage to their left. The confines of the ceiling fell away once more as they came across a staircase, the walls closing it in seeming to stretch up forever.

A light, bright and blinding, shone back at Serana from an opening at the top. The roil of the ocean flowed freely over her ears, the frigid cold of the outside flooding her lungs.

"Sera," whispered Cedric, tugging gently on her wrist. She looked back, her face mirroring the concern etched into his. "What is it?" She whispered back.

"I think I still hear them."

"Hear wh-"

Snarling. Growling. Panting. Barking.

Bony paws pattering over the stone from the darkness behind them.

"Come on!" She yelled, nearly yanking Cedric off of his feet as her legs strode up two stone steps. It wasn't long before her muscles began to burn with a searing ache, the faint rays of light peeking through cracks in the distant ceiling doing little to help. Sweat ran down her forehead in stinging streaks.

"I- think they're getting closer-" wheezed Cedric.

"Just keep running, we can't fight them," she hissed out through a wince. She launched herself up another two steps. Cedric nearly stumbled, barely covering a single step in the same stride.

"Do I need to carry you!?"

"Wh- what?"

She gasped, halfway through a stride, emptying her lungs and sucking in a breath that swelled them back up. And then she reached back, the hand she held Cedric's with loosening to snake around his back, her other arm hooking around his ankles. He yelped as she swept him off his feet in one swift motion, her aching stride not slowed in the slightest.

The faint glimmer of red eyes behind them, swarming by the dozens, kept her going.

"They're not going to follow us!?" He bellowed into her ear, voice raspy with exhaustion.

"They can't swim!"

"Wait- _swim!?"_

"Yes! Take a deep breath!"

"Sera, wait-"

There was no time to wait. Wincing at the strain on her shoulders, on her bicep, she reached up from behind Cedric's back with the hand closest to his head, fingers closing over his mouth. She closed her eyes as her feet suddenly touched upon cold air, rushing by beneath her boot soles.

She really hoped she managed to get that waterbreathing spell off before the current tore Cedric out of her arms.


	20. Chapter 19

He tumbled into the shadows with a forceful splash, darkness enveloping him. He flailed in the abyss, blackness swimming by his vision like loosely floating ashes. His vision blurred and blacked out, a formless mass of force twisting his limbs about, in directions he could not comprehend.

A scream welled in the pits of his lungs, but when he opened his lips to release it, there was nothing that came out. Nothing but the roar of the ocean in his ears.

When his soundless scream tapered off, lost to the black, he drew in a deep breath. Then released it. Again. And again. Faster, more frantic with each passing second that he was lost in the ashen veil cast over his eyes.

Dirty, sludgy water slipped over his fingers before streaming into his fading surroundings.

A gleam of silvery metal- too dull to truly be silver, too lustrous to be mere steel- caught his eye. Though it was but a passing glimpse, a sliver of color in the torrential mire, he knew what it was.

He had always known what it was.

 _The broken chain of a free man._

The half-conjured breath that he'd been preparing was slammed out of him, his bones resounding with the force. The whipping forces that had been swarming him tapered off into glimmering ripples, and soft streams of azure wrapped around his limbs, pulling him down… down…

Baleful red eyes bled into his sight, dots of hard crimson glaring at him from a shadowy mass of flesh. A razor maw, icy teeth gleaming like chrome, gnashed and snapped at him.

He gasped, a chill piercing through the ice water which streamed over his skin.

 _Wait!_

He called out helplessly into the void, the death hound's gangly limbs pawing at the serene space between them. Propelling its snout, its ravenous maw, ever closer to him. To his wrist, the thin clouds of red that were floating out from beneath the furs tied over the flesh.

To the chain that bound it all together.

No. No!

It wasn't fair!

They said it hadn't been his fate to die!

His arms flailed helplessly against the grip of the sea, his legs kicked aimlessly in the void.

And then the death hound fell still. It seemed to happen in a flash, the blink of an eye- an ice spike speared through the top of the hound's head, ripping out through a seamless fissure beneath its jaw. Robbed of its vigor, it floated down past Cedric, decayed paws grazing against his wrist lamely. Touching, ever so slightly, upon the chain.

When it fell out of his sight, the figure that took its place was unmistakable. Draped in royal red, her raven locks of hair fluttering around her porcelain visage, was Sera. The sun's rays gleamed all around her, dancing through drifts of snow and rippling water both as she descended with the grace of a goddess, her hand reaching out for his.

He obliged gladly, chained wrist rising up, the metal links glimmering in the light. His fingers floating, closer, ever closer, to Sera.

But his breathing seemed to grow thinner with each passing second, and with it, his vision began blurring.

So close. So close…

His fingers grazed past hers. Quivering, as though lost in a bubble of haziness that… that wasn't-

Her hand, cold and smoothing, touched upon his lips. He gasped, and the sharpness suddenly returned to his vision. The icy water stung his skin, soaked his clothes.

But he was awake. And Sera was there, smile more radiant than the light behind her, grasping once more at his hands. Pulling him up out of the nightmare.

 **0-0-0**

He collapsed onto the slick stone steps, the inhuman chill of the sea finally catching up to his flesh in quaking convulsions.

"Oh, _shit,_ " he heard Sera hiss as her shadow fell over him, the increasingly familiar but certainly not unwelcome sensation of her arms wrapping around him buzzing at his senses from beyond a wall of numbing pain.

Even so, it couldn't crush the swell of sheer _happiness_ in his heart.

"I'm fine," he said shakily, his clammy hands trembling against Sera's, his teeth chattering.

"No. You're definitely not," she continued, face hard set in concern. "Gods damn it. I should've expected this."

"E-expected what?"

"The possibility of you _freezing_ to death in the ocean. It didn't even cross my mind. Damn it."

A shaky sigh left her lips as she held her palm next to his face, embers faintly floating around the skin. The warmth washed over him, and he released a breath, eyes flickering shut in contentness.

"Cedric!"

"Mm?"

"Oh, gods, I thought I'd lost you for a second."

"Mm."

"Hold still dammit, I need to warm you up some before we head out, or you'll never make it like this. Open your eyes."

He obeyed- how could he not?

"Look at me."

He did just that, losing himself in the supple amber, and the velvety center of her iris.

 _You're beautiful._

Somehow though, even now, he couldn't bring himself to say the words. A part of him worried it would… ruin it all. After all this.

The thought was unbearable.

"It's finally over," he breathed.

"What?"

"The nightmares. The dreams, this chain," he said, a hearty laugh breaking through the ice streaking over his skin. "You saved me. You slew the beast."

Her brows furrowed, momentarily breaking the visage of perfection staring down at him. "It's not over until we're on that boat and back at the mainland. Even then, I don't know if we'll ever be truly safe." A tenderness seeped into her voice with those last words, her gaze turning upwards, distantly, at the castle. "I don't know if you'll be safe. If you stay with me."

He shook his head. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

She didn't say anything for some time.

 **0-0-0**

He wasn't sure how long he'd laid there in Sera's warm grasp, embers dancing along his skin, but it felt like a blissful eternity. The chain remained bound around his wrist, its cold grasp no longer imprisoning him.

It didn't last.

The shivers finally seemed to catch up to him through the soaked mass of furs he still wore, his vision swimming as Sera hauled him up.

The rest of their escape passed by in a cold blur.

When he awoke again, he did so lying against the back of a wooden boat, its rocking waves lulling the nausea that lingered in his skull.

It was a bit larger than the last one he remembered, the one they arrived at the castle in- not by much, but there was enough room for his legs to be stretched out now.

Sera's unmistakable figure was poised at the front of the boat, her hair, this time free of the hood that confined it, flowing gracefully in windborne snow.

His mouth seemed to move of its own accord, before the sluggish musings in his mind could even fully process what he was about to say.

"You're… pretty amazing. Everything… you pulled off."

She didn't answer, but did look over her shoulder at him. The winds kicked up her hair, sending some errant strands streaking over her striking eyes. She smiled. He smiled back.

That was all he really cared for at the moment, wasn't it?

Yeah.

His eyelids were heavy. As though the snow falling upon his lashes were weighing them down. Easing him to rest.

He couldn't rest though, not just yet- a strange instinct at the back his mind willed him not to, to endure the pain just a while longer. It dug beneath the flesh of his eyelids, like chilling fingernails. It grasped him by the neck, turned his attention to an ominous hump which rose from the sea in the mist of snow. Breaching the surface, like… an otherworldly creature, rising from the water.

"Hey," he breathed, Sera looking back silently at him again, no smiles to be found on her lips this time. That was okay though. "What is that?"

His arm wavered, almost feeling as though it was flapping in the wind as he aimed his finger at the shadowy silhouette out there.

Sera's head turned back around to the front, silent for the moment He was about to slump back down, against the wooden board at his back, before she spoke, her soft words nearly lost in the wind. "That's just an island, Cedric."

"Oh. Mm. Mmm."

"Just hang in there."

He didn't have anything to hang on to, unfortunately.

So he kept himself preoccupied, distracted, with watching the shapes that scrolled by in the haze of snow. Calling them out when they didn't quite register to his slipping consciousness.

There were a lot that were just pieces of ice, floating on the water. Sometimes there were creatures which laid on them- great, lumbering heaps of stony grey flesh, the only thing keeping him from fully mistaking them for rocks being the trio of tusks that protruded from their front.

His eyes always seemed to turn back to that island though. Growing larger. Closer.

It grew to the point that it loomed over them, a solitary hump of rock, ice sheets floating in the shadow-cast waters beneath it. Tattered planks of wood, sheathed in frosty crusts, were sparsely strewn over the ice-sheet shore. Three of those lumpy, tusked creatures- horkers, he think Sera had called them- lounged about around them.

It felt as though their beady black eyes were following him.

"That's strange," he heard Sera whisper, her voice too soft to be meant to pierce the veil of snow around them. "I didn't think there'd be a landmass that large this deep in the ice fields."

The ice fields.

Those words reverberated in the back of his mind, echoing in a maddening voice. The wind howled by, ghostly whispers grazing by his ears.

The Sea of Ghosts.

A chill raced down his spine, rushing across his shoulder and jabbing at the wound in his wrist. He held it up, eyes narrowing on the metal links. It was almost as though there was… something inside the loops, that dangled from the knot he'd tied. Beyond them, peering at him through the thin slits in the metal where the rings conjoined.

His arm fell.

Shadowy shapes on the water, scattered across the surface in the distance.

"Hey, Sera."

She didn't answer, keeping her gaze firmly set on their surroundings, her arms churning the paddles that propelled them forward.

But that was okay.

He leaned back, shuffling his feet ever so slightly, shaking the clumped locks of his hair out of his eyes.

The shapes grew larger. Closer. Too fast to be ice on the water. He squinted again, and when that was not enough, he shuffled up to the edge of the boat, the shift in his weight eliciting a startled cry from Sera.

That wasn't okay.

And neither was the shapes he was seeing, he realized, as they drew close enough for him to see the amber and red eyes they carried.

"Sera, I think-"

 **0-0-0**

Serana turned around in time to see the ice spike spear through Cedric's chest. His eyes were wide, a blankness flashing over those blue irises. Pale and cold.

They broke from her gaze as he fell against the back of the boat, the tapered end of the stake that impaled him scraping loudly against the wood. His arms trembled. His boots kicked weakly, the soles slapping against the back of her legs. Shivering mumbles spilled out from his lips like streams of blood.

Her teeth ground together, a whimper that had been threatening to break out from her throat instead leaving as a cold hiss. She released the oars, splashing them into the water as she all but dove over to Cedric.

Lightning flashed, striking against the hull of the boat and splintering in a crack of thunder. A searing wound burned through where Serana had been squatting just moments earlier, embers dancing over frosted wood. Embers that quickly burst into flame. Flames that spread along the inside of the listing boat, creeping ever closer to her.

To Cedric.

His pulse beat languidly against her skin now. His breath was barely noticeable on her cheek over the wind.

Fingers scrabbling for purchase in his frosted hair, she dragged him down, his head smacking limply against the wooden hull of the boat. A garbled exclamation ripped out from his lips, drowning out the apology that she whispered through trembling teeth.

Another bolt of violet strands seared at them, flashing close enough to singe the rim of the wood she pressed herself up against. Close enough to cast a spray of white-hot sparks over her cheek, the sting of them rippling over her nerves.

The hull of the boat creaked in agony, the fire crackling as it ate away at the boat's ribbed insides.

Neither of those sounds registered in her ears more than Cedric's panicked moans.

His limbs flailed, Serana having to keep an arm pressed tightly over his neck and hands to keep them from peeking over the rim of the boat.

Her eyes darted around, looking around for something, anything which could help them-

Cedric's cries rose in pitch. His feet kicked frantically against his own legs now, tinges of bright orange tracing over the sides of his boots.

-nothing.

There was nothing in the boat.

She pressed her forehead up against the side of Cedric's head. Squeezed her eyes shut. Closed a hand over Cedric's lips again, magicka glowing at her raw fingertips. She could barely find the strength to channel it forth, feeling his teeth gnash beneath her palm, her magick unable to silence his blood curdling wails.

When she finished, wincing as his cries split against her ears in their obstructed horror, she looped one arm underneath him. Her other grasped the rim of the boat above her head, the nerves at the tips of her fingers screeching in protest as her skin ground into the orange spots that still danced on the wood. And then, with all the strength she could muster, she pulled.

The boat, what remained of it, slipped out from underneath them, plunging them once more into the sea. Searing white bubbles clouded them from the blackened and splintering hull, her teeth biting down and choking back a cry of agony.

She forced her eyes to remain open, glancing over, making sure that Cedric's chest heaved away in spite of the icy spear driven through it, defying reality itself as her spell channeled air into his lungs.

That was all she could do for him.

And for the moment, all she could do for herself. She brought her hand up to her own lips.

The panicked sob that she'd been holding in eked out ahead of her first breath as her cheeks deflated. Her lungs shook as her eyes darted around, racing up, down, and around their sinking bodies.

Her legs kicked aimlessly at the water, only enough to keep them from being dragged down any lower- there was nowhere to go. If they surfaced, their pursuers- the silhouettes of two fat boats murky through the veil of water and blowing snow between them- would fry them as soon as they were spotted.

 _How did this happen?_

She'd made _sure_ nobody had been following them – the castle halls had been dead empty when she left! Nobody had stopped them out on the pier!

At least, nobody she'd seen…

 _I fucked up._

She shook her head blindly in the water, hair lashing about over her face. Cedric's arms were slipping out of hers.

Those boats had to be Volkihar. Nobody else would be so brazen as to attack at that distance, in the middle of the damned sea.

She grabbed Cedric by the shoulders, pulled him up to her as close as she could without driving the spike in his chest into herself as well. His blue eyes rippled in the water, but they held her gaze. She ran a finger down the side of his numbed cheeks, no tint of pink to be found in them now.

 _I'm sorry._

Her words floated out soundlessly. She wondered if he would even be able to read them off of her lips- he had no response to offer, the blink in his eyes, the faint pulse she could feel through his freezing skin, the only indications she had that he wasn't already dead.

She glanced up, only able to watch as those boats drifted closer. Their shadows entwining with that which the island cast over them all. The steaming tatters of the boat she and Cedric had taken still bubbled above them, the flicker of orange quivering fuzzily in the deluge of snow up above.

Something plunged through the ice, a muted crack rippling down to her ears. Another. And then one more.

Her eyes trailed over towards the looming, dark mass of the island, catching the sight of three horkers breaching down through the ice sheets. Glistening shards floated around the bubbly trail of their impact, their fat flippers carrying them down through the water at an alarming speed.

She gulped, gripping Cedric with one arm as her other reached down to the sword sheathed at her hip.

The magicka in her veins still flowed, but the current seemed to have numbed and tapered somewhat already. She needed it more to keep Cedric breathing.

But the horkers didn't draw any closer. The trio streamed right past them as though they weren't even there, their lumpy bodies gliding down into the shadowy rock which sloped away from the island. And then they disappeared entirely. Swallowed by the dark.

Her eyes narrowed.

The familiar mouth of a tunnel, opening out from the deep rock, sharpened into focus.

If they couldn't go up, then they had to go down.

She didn't pause to think on it any longer- her legs propelled her and Cedric towards it.


	21. Chapter 20

She didn't pause to think over how lucky they were that the tunnel had surfaced inside a cave. Didn't pause to wonder where the horkers that they'd followed in had gone.

All she could afford to do was keep moving forward- wherever forward led now.

Cedric's breathing grew more ragged against her cheek with each step they took, the frantic heat of it dripping down her clammy white skin like molten metal. Her own breaths, husky and panting, echoed down the icy tunnel in tune with his failing heartbeat. She tried to ignore the ebbing vitality in the pulses of his skin against hers, the increasing millimeters she had to drag him forwards by with each step. Tried to ignore the stake of ice embedded in his weakly heaving chest, jabbing into her periphery.

Voices rang out from behind them, twisting down to Serana's ears around water-slicked corners and between translucent icicles. Her arm tightened around Cedric, pulling his sagging body closer to hers as she powered forth into longer strides.

She rounded a corner, hearing those voices twisting into undulating taunts, bellowing all around her from the garbled reflections in the grimy sheets of ice that ran down rock.

She caught a glimpse of herself in there- her hair drooping like a wet mop, salt-streaked strands warping in with the frozen contortions stretching over the wall.

It fell away as she rounded a corner.

Her breath hitched as she came face-to-tusk with a massive horker, the shriveled hide of its lumpy body nearly scraping up to the stalagmites hanging from the ceiling.

Cedric audibly shuddered, a slur of incomprehensible noises spilling out from his frosted lips.

The only thing that kept Serana's frayed nerves from driving her back was the realization that its jowls dangled loosely from its sagging face, unable to obscure the dry gash that split down between its eyes.

"Come on," she murmured, instinctively pulling Cedric's body closer to hers as she led them past, a renewed echo of warped shouts on her ears driving her past the bizarre sight.

The horker wasn't one of the ones they'd followed in. The blood streaked over the thin stretch of stone left between it and the wall flaked against her boots, her footsteps.

Somehow, that was even more disconcerting.

She braced Cedric against her as she dug into the slick stone of the slope winding down before them. A shroud of dimness enveloped the open cavern that lay at the bottom of it.

Serana snaked her free hand around her front and grasped one of his, the flowing warmth in his palm trickling away like the water droplets that dripped down from the stalactites above.

"You're gonna be okay," she whispered into his ear, strands of his sweat and salt crusted black hair grazing against her face. A low moan was all he managed in response. She gave his hand a weak squeeze, quietly perturbed at how her fingers pressed through mere millimeters of tautly stretched flesh before touching on bone.

They ground their way down the rest of the slope. A drop of water from above beaded down her forehead before striking down on her brow. The cold sensation on that peculiar patch of flesh sent shivers running down her spine, vibrating against the Elder Scroll drawn over her back.

She drew in a cold breath, finding the frigidness somehow still comforting to her. Even though she knew it was killing Cedric.

That breath caught in her throat when she took Cedric down the last step on the slope. She froze mid-stride, Cedric rocking against her body at the sudden halt. He managed a blurred murmur of confusion before falling into shocked silence, his limp gaze aligning with Serana's at the array of figures standing in their way.

Yellow eyes, tinged with red irises, peered at them through the dimness. Sharp-toothed grins lined the visages of the half-dozen vampires before them- a grotesque conglomeration of the dregs of her father's court. Their drab red and grey garments hung loosely from their lithe bodies, the strips of deathly pale skin they left exposed stretching over thickly corded muscles.

One stood above them all, leaning against a craggy pillar in the center of the cavern. Combed black hair veiled his face, leaving only one gimlet eye visible.

He pushed off of the rock structure he'd been leaning against, striding out onto a small plateau which rose over the eyes before her. She could've sworn she heard the sound of claws scraping against stone underneath his feet.

Her ears prickled with the sound of more footsteps behind her, sliding over moist rock. She glanced back over her shoulder, over the drooping head of Cedric, and found with a sinking feeling in her chest that four more vampires were there now, blocking the ramp leading out.

"You know, Lady Serana," Sarpa called out, "I think I understand your fascination with this mortal now."

She held her silence, but freed one of her hands from Cedric, her other arm pulling him closer. The sensation of his fading breath on her neck, swirling with Sarpa's mocking words, bubbled at her nerves.

"There's something just intoxicating about the fear he emanates, isn't there? A surge in his blood, a pounding vigor that even other wildling mortals lack. I can practically hear it throbbing in the air."

She tried to ignore how those words seemed to resonate with the rhythm of Cedric's heartbeat. Tried to ignore how sharp it suddenly made her teeth feel against her own tongue.

"Could only imagine what it would feel like to sink my fangs into that."

"You won't touch him," she shot back, only all too aware of the growl that rumbled at the back of her throat.

"Ah. Keeping him all to yourself then? Such a shame. Like daughter like father though, I suppose."

"You don't know the first thing about me or my father." Her voice came out just above a snarl this time.

A chorus of chuckles rumbled around her. Sarpa's grin grew wider, but she could see his lithe hands clenching into fists. "I can say with certainty one thing about your father. He was right- empty bravado doesn't do you much credit," he said, voice dripping with venom. "But I do so love a good fight. Perhaps you'd be willing to entertain me in that regard at least? I would imagine Lady Hestla did not gift you a blade for mere decoration."

Sarpa did not move, but she could see the congregation of vampires beneath him and feel the four behind her inching forwards.

The blade Sarpa spoke of stayed sheathed and impotent at Serana's waist, her ability to wield it crippled by Cedric. A fact that Sarpa and his retinue seemed only all too aware of.

Fingers flexed around wicked weapons, deft hands brandishing them with playful flourishes. One vampire slid the edge of her sabre down her own bare arm, the blade running across dead white flesh. When the first drop of her blood snaked into the ghastly mouth carved into her weapon's handle, a wispy sheen of frost enveloped the curved length of her blade. The glassy green that naturally imbued the malachite and moonstone alloy was washed out, veins of icy white hardening the edge.

Another vampire hefted his hammer, the skin-wrapped shaft standing taller than he was. The bronze talon adorning the end of his weapon pierced through the jaws of a wolf's head, its cast iron visage sculpted into an expression of agony.

"These are fine examples of Lady Hestla's older works. I remember watching her toil in the smithy, right up until the hours before sunrise, every hammer strike she wrought upon the anvil punctuated by a zealous fire in her veins. Her weapons had such… expression to them. Such _life._ "

Just as Sarpa finished, another vampire cracked a whip. The black leather tongue was crudely infused with iron barbs, its entire length steeped in a rusty dry red. Its wielder's eyes lit up at the sharp sound of it snapping against the air.

"They rivaled the twisted wonders crafted by the Dremora- yet when given the opportunity to work with the same metal they did, commissioned by Lord Harkon himself to smith a weapon worthy of his daughter's return, she made something so… pedestrian. I always wondered why. Perhaps we'll find out once you've returned."

Serana inhaled a steadying breath, blotting out Sarpa's ramblings, the sight of his followers advancing on her, even the pulse of Cedric's heartbeat against her own skin.

"We could discuss it over a nice cup of tea and blood. Perhaps the tray I brought up to your room hasn't even grown cold yet."

She couldn't use her blade, perhaps- but mere metal had never been her strongest weapon.

She flexed her free hand, letting magicka course through to her fingertips. Heat, like the fading blood rushing through Cedric's veins, flowing into embers, embers into sparks-

A plume of orange sprang to life in her palm, the illuminating tongues of fire giving the vampires around her brief pause.

The smile disappeared from Sarpa's boyish visage. "Do what you will with the mortal. But exercise some restraint with the Lady. We wouldn't want to send our Lord's daughter back to him in pieces."

The small, fluttering flame in her palm swelled with magickal energy at a surging pace, bubbling against the orb her fingers tried to shape it in with a white-hot fervor that threatened to consume her own flesh. A panicked, stray thought in the back of her mind envisioned just that for a moment; it was crushed by a steely coldness that clamped down on her tingling skin.

"You'll be the ones returning in pieces."

Her arm thrust forward, stagnant muscle straining against bone. Her eyes stung with the influx of incandescence that her fireball cast. The undulating tails of flame streaking behind it as it lanced out of her hand painted violent shadows across the walls.

Sarpa's retinue scattered, their bodies moving at a frenzied pace. Feet left the ground entirely as they leapt to the side.

One vampire, however, continued his lunging advance on her, a smirk twitching over his craggy lips as he slipped underneath the oncoming fireball like water around a rock. Not a second later, it impacted behind him, ravenous waves of searing white heat blowing past his figure and swallowing him whole. While his comrades hissed and jerked around the lashing tongues of flame left behind from the blinding luminescence, he danced with the fire. A shrill scream rang out from his melting lungs, shrieking echoes reverberating off the strobing walls. Scorching sludge peeled away from the clots of flame clinging to his bones.

Pivoting around as fast as she could with the limp form of Cedric grasped firmly in her other arm, she sucked in a deep breath, the scent of liquefying meat flooding her nostrils and searing through her deadened nerves. She suppressed a shudder, letting a fresh tide of magicka wash through her veins.

She righted herself in time to see a curved blade raised high, at the peak of its murderous arc down towards her. Its wielder's eyes glinted madly in the light dancing upon his fallen brethren.

Too close, too quick for her to even think, she acted.

Her palm shot up at the savage creature's sword arm, stopping just short of his elbow as the embers in her hand burst into a blossoming cloud of orange. The force of the explosion sent quivers through her bones, the backwash from the uncontrolled blast drowning her in a nauseating heat. She nearly choked, errant sparks flying back against her, burning bright dots catching onto her clothing.

But the oncoming swordsman had been checked, flame-shaped blade now bearing actual flames as it clattered to the ground. Scorched remnants of its wielder's fingers still clung to its smoking handle. A dry retch bubbled out from the blackened rags clinging to the swordsman's skull as his charred corpse sunk to its buckling knees.

From behind the crumbling black flakes peeling off his arm, another vampire stepped out, the ends of her short hair faintly charred, the skin around her left eye raw and shriveled.

Hand still extended, Serana willed a concentrated stream of fire to her fingertips, flooding it out towards the vampire. Predictably, she leapt to the side- but Serana followed her darting trajectory with her arm, still spewing luminescent death. The flames washed over the vampire mid-flight. A blood-curdling shriek echoed through the cave.

Serana gasped, black spots flashing in her vision. Her casting arm fell limp, sputtering convulsions gently rippling through her fingers as the entire world seemed to tumble around for a moment.

The remains of her latest assailant splashed against the ground in a fleshy comet, molten bones slathering the stone in a black tar.

Fire swelled in Serana's own lungs as her body began to sag with the weight of Cedric clinging to her, and the tidal currents of magicka flushing out of her veins too quickly. She heard the crack of a whip, and yanked herself upright, bracing her quivering legs against naught but the moist stone beneath her.

She saw the barbed lash coming down towards her.

Too close, too quick.

She threw herself to the side, pushing Cedric with her slumping shoulder, but ground her teeth together in anticipation of the inevitable strike.

A savage force tore through her bicep, black iron puncturing skin, a hard, leathery tongue splitting muscle fibres. The aftershock of the impact ripped through her nerves in a pulsating wave. She didn't realize she'd been screaming until her voice grew hoarse enough for her to discern Cedric's whimpering. "Ser…a…"

She yanked him with her as she retreated, further into the openness of the cave. Wine-thin blood cascaded out of the jagged fissure carved into her arm, soaking her already red sleeve and washing down the length of her entire body. Shadowy tendrils clawed at the edge of her vision as she dragged her legs across stone, skin tingling with the sensation of millennia old blood trickling over it.

Perhaps out of wariness, or perhaps to toy with her, the remaining vampires still advanced on her slowly, eerie smiles enduring despite the screams of their fallen comrades. Throaty breaths seethed out from her lips.

"Stay with me," she stuttered through a mouthful of saliva to Cedric, leaning him against her shoulder as she let go of him with her good arm and ripped the cape off her shoulder. Keeping her eyes swivelling all around her, she wrapped it around the wicked wound in her arm in a haphazard bandage.

She choked back another scream as she tightened the knot around it, teeth biting into her tongue. Needles of pain shot through her nerves as a few black thorns that had sloughed off from the whip hooked deeper into her arm. She grabbed hold of Cedric again, sparing a glance at him as she did so. She wished that she didn't. Thin lines of viscous drip trickled from his nostrils, and specks of ash smeared into his cheeks with the tears that streamed from his eyes.

All she could do now was backpedal. Her chest heaved in a frantic counterpoint with Cedric's. One of his hands grasped weakly at hers, the one which could still feel anything, which could feel the transient frenzy in his pulse over the slick coating of blood between their skin.

Her own legs trembled with each backward step she took. Agonizing waves, from both the whip strike and overexpenditure of magicka reserves that had remained dormant for eons, pulsed through her nerves.

It wasn't long before she had to stop moving, lest she find herself backing right into the other vampires behind her. Lazily, they dispersed around her into a circle. A whip cracked again, and she hated how she could see their leering smiles widening at the convulsing flinch that travelled uncontrollably through her body at that mere sound.

She glanced up at Sarpa, finding him still watching on from behind, his own fingers flexing hungrily.

With the sensation of blood trickling through her fingers no longer registering- whether it was because she had managed to stem the bleeding or because she'd lost so much she couldn't feel it anymore she didn't care- she clenched and unclenched her free hand, trying to summon forth some dregs of energy from the sapped veins in her body.

Perhaps it was her very perception beginning to fail her, with her vision blurring more each passing second, but there seemed to be something elseout there now. She could hear something else amongst the cacophony of tapering screams, a muted rhythm of heavy thumps running underneath the noise ringing in her ears- she could feel something else over the numbness settling in her skin, weighty vibrations from the stone beneath her trembling knees.

And then she saw it.

It began as a pair of inconspicuous red dots in the shadows, a surefire trick of the light. But not even a second passed before they drew closer, hardening into baleful teardrop shapes.

A reedy gasp brushed against her neck, Cedric tightening his grip on her hand.

He saw it too. A bared maw of teeth beneath the red.

Two of the vampires seemed to sense the disturbance- one of them turned around, twirling a serrated axe around his hand. The other snapped her whip up towards her open mouth, the barbs snaking tantalizingly close to her body before ever so slightly snagging on her tongue. Serana could see the leather still damp with blood- _her blood._

It was drowned out by a cascade of fresh viscera. The axeman- or his upper half, rather- sailed through the air. His severed arm remained anchored to his weapon, porcelain fingers still taut around the slick handle. Above the elbow, stringy fibres of muscle fluttered with jagged ribbons of splintered bone. The rest of his torso, flesh practically unravelling around the tear ripping down its abdomen, landed meters away from his legs with a moist smack. His innards splattered across the stone, still engorged with the rich crimson blood of fresh cattle.

The whipbearer beside him lashed out with inhuman speed, the bloodstained tongue of her weapon slithering out at the unseen assailant before the axeman's unsupported legs even began to topple over. There was a crack in the darkness, but those red eyes in the shadows remained unblinking.

This time, Serana saw the thing'sblade before it cleaved the whipbearer in twain- wrought from a dark silver hue and stained with streaks of fresh vitae, nearly as long as the body it bisected.

The details branded into her eyes, the split seconds it took for the muscle in the whipbearer's abdomen to peel apart passing like hours. The boneshaking wound in her own arm seemed to numb in comparison.

It was perhaps good that was the case, for it gave her enough focus to shove herself and Cedric out of the way of the blade, still shrouded in a spray of crimson mist and reaching out far longer than seemed possible, arcing down towards them.

Too close, too quick- for anything she'd known short of another vampire, at least.

The tip of the weapon swung by close enough to send ripples through her hair. She didn't stop moving. Didn't stop to fathom just how close it had come to striking her- to striking _Cedric._ She tugged at the still form of Cedric, limp from dumbfounded shock or fading vitality, she couldn't tell. Couldn't afford to tell.

She looked back, eyes darting around for the telltale glint of a follow-up stroke – she found the wielder's gaze again first. Fleshless, crystalline lenses, frozen into a chilling glare that cast faint rays of blood light towards her fleeing form.

Suddenly, the creature lurched in the shadows, otherworldly visage dipping away from an oncoming hammer strike. The hammer's wailing wolf maw drew sparks across the slab of hard flesh that it struck. They flashed bright enough, for just a moment, to illuminate the craggy rent that had been hewn out in its wake.

The creature's blade swung out in reprisal, from the midst of an arc that was meant to cut her down barely a second earlier. This time, it only sheared off some errant strands of a wild mane of hair. Before those silky black clippings, cut from the now-cackling hammer-bearing vampire, could even touch the ground, another vampire came at the creature from behind. Her ice-swathed sabre cleaved down towards its red eyes, the magickal light cast by the pale frost washing over the smirk painted over her lips.

Faster than seemingly possible, the creature's eyes lurched away. The vampire's blade sheared into a veritable wall, ice-honed malachite edge burying into the same fissure that the hammer from before had cracked open. The screech that echoed throughout the cave was wrought from metal ripping through metal. The cascade that poured out of the wound was one of sparks, one that tapered off as quickly as it had spewed forth. The graceful arc of the swordswoman's strike ground to a violent halt, lodged in a bloodless wound.

Serana caught the creature's gaze again.

There was no pain to be seen in the faint luminescence of its crystal red eyes, no scream breaking over the gleaming metallic snarl of its teeth.

It lasted for barely even a split second, but in that moment alone the thin blood that remained in her draining body flooded with a buzzing urgency.

The remaining vampires swarmed around the creature, bodies lunging towards it from different angles. The swordswoman, still anchored to its flesh by her weapon, found herself yanked off her feet by its reaction.

A bloodied arc of silver flashed, and she was flung away from it in two halves.

Visceral debris flew past Serana and Cedric, dragging a jellied trail across the wet stone ground. The crack of heavy metal slamming into flesh and bone reverberated in her ears as, not a moment later, she saw a spurt of pulp fly out the fractured skull of the hammer bearer.

She turned away, a chill quaking down her spine. Water slid down the stalactites above her like blood down teeth.

Cedric's heartbeat pulsed languidly against her skin, his ragged breaths running thin in her ears. Thunderous footsteps rumbled behind them, in furious counterpoint with shuffling cloth and snarling hisses. A wet snap rang out, a yelp cracking out over the sound of marrow spilling from broken bones. Not a second later, a squelching crunch silenced that bat-like cry.

Cedric's grip around her hand tightened, but he was lurching further down into the ground, as though melting in with the heaps of meat and skin strewn about the stone-

"Stay with me," she whispered with a trembling voice, body driven by dregs of energy that would not let him fall now, after all she'd already dragged him through.

Another shriek bellowed out from behind them, wrought from metal splitting muscle.

Her own breathing pounded in a muffled reverb within her ears, suffocated by the din of violence swirling around the cave. Dark tendrils crept at the periphery of her vision, their shadowy silhouettes stretching around her.

A babbling groan rumbled out from beside her, incomprehensible murmurs rumbling forth from Cedric's shuddering lips. She winced, fighting through the pain racing through her wounded arm as she brought her free hand up to his chin. When she raised his face up, sliding the water-slick clumps of hair dragging down his forehead aside, she saw flickering white in his eyes.

His blue irises were plugged up against the top of his eyelids, straining to hold their gaze on her.

A skull cracked against the stone behind her, pounded into the ground by a heavy footfall.

Cedric's legs finally gave out.

Grinding her teeth into her tongue, splaying her eyes open in spite of the tear-stained black clawing at her consciousness, she caught his limp form with her wounded arm. Muscle fibres that had barely began to mend splintered under his collapsing weight, black thorns still lodged in her flesh driving down towards bone.

A muffled cry, spurting out from her bloodstained tongue, entwined with Cedric's helpless moans. She shifted his weight, trying to move it towards her uninjured arm without letting his quivering body slip out of her grasp entirely. His eyes had gone milky and translucent, red veins carving into the white.

She couldn't bear to look at them any longer. She could only trust that the heartbeat she still felt pulsing against her ravaged arm wasn't just a hopeful mirage swimming out of the dark.

One step after another, the open mouth of the tunnel leading out drew closer to her. Opened wider. The stones hanging over the ramp just beyond it dangled like tonsils. Shivering, as the waves of another scream rippled throughout the cave. She was only faintly aware of the meaty crack that preceded it this time.

A flash of bright violet illuminated their craggy surface. The clap of thunder drowned out the rumble of heavy footfalls. A split second passed, the blinding influx of light fading away as quickly as it had assaulted her.

They were nearly out now, stone lips barely five strides away from swallowing her and Cedric. The sound of her boot smacking down on the ground echoed in the void behind her.

She looked back.

She looked back, in time to catch the gaze of those cold red eyes again, that metal maw, still holding its chrome teeth in a tight clench. It zipped through the air, acrid smoke trailing out of a smoldering crater that split open its chest, ember-dotted tatters of white fluttering around the black flesh.

That was the last she saw of it before it disappeared into a thunderous plume of debris. The central pillar in the cave, no longer supporting Sarpa's lithe figure, almost seemed to teeter in the lingering aftershock.

…

 _No longer supporting Sarpa._

Her eyes darted over the bloody mire, a spike of panic catching her in the throat at the sudden realization that there was now nothing else standing between her, Cedric, and whatever had managed to stop that creature.

She didn't have to look far.

Sarpa stood alone, amongst the bloody mire that his retinue had been reduced to - limbs bent out from the sticky red film on the ground, immaculately manicured fingers frozen in unnatural contortions, shattered bones stripped of flesh stood propped up on lumps of offal. His bare feet stepped over a clump of moist entrails without hesitation, his toothy grin illuminated by the fulgurous coils flashing in his hand.

Too close. Too quick.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl around her. Sarpa's eyes dug into hers, crackles of luminescent purple reflecting off of amber and crimson.

His other foot drew forward, soles grazing over the splintered spinal column that trailed out the bloody remains of somebody's stomach. His toes touched down on the blank eyes of the hammer-bearing vampire, the hammer in question lost in the stew of blood, the bearer's skull split open by… something.

An odd cylindrical object, just smaller than a fist, was lodged neatly inside his forehead. Square ridges lined the surface, the shaping of whatever material constituted it unnaturally precise. Uniform, amongst the stringy mess it stood in. It stuck out like a sore thumb, if sore thumbs sprouted from pulpy head cavities.

That was, up until it exploded.

The blast tore at her ears with an incomparable magnitude, a wild sonic violence loud enough to leave behind only ringing to her barren senses.

Sarpa was flung away like a ragdoll, the flesh of his limbs visibly rippling from a skin-stripping impact before being swallowed up by fire. A storm of razor debris tore through corpses that were already mangled, pulverizing bone that had already been shattered.

The weakened remnants of the pillar in the back of the cave crumpled, bringing a rain of loosened debris down.

The entire cave _lurched_ , the roar of crumbling rock sounding like a great beast's stomach howling with hunger to her deafened ears. Rows of falling stalactites streaked down like gnashing teeth.

Only then did the enduring shockwave of that initial explosion slam into Serana. Her neck snapped forward, a half-conjured breath blown out of her lungs. Her feet left the ground, and the next thing she knew, she was flying. Torrents of dust battered past her fluttering hair, carrying with them shards of rock and bone in an unspeakable hail of carnage. The ramp- the threshold between this surreal hell and the world outside rushed up towards her.

Towards Cedric.

Without a second thought, she looped both her arms around him, grasping the collar of his tattered and soaked coat with her non-wounded one. In one violent motion, she lurched to the side, yanking Cedric's body on top of her own.

A scream bellowed uncontrollably out from her lips when the stone surface met her in a boneshaking embrace. The metal rim of the Elder Scroll, still secured on her back, dug into the ridges of her spine as it scraped across the ground. Tears flowed freely down her grime crusted cheeks as, not a second later, she was silenced by Cedric's hip punching into her stomach.

The downpour of rubble reached a booming crescendo, just beyond the smeared soles of her boots. The mouth which separated that cave from her and Cedric slammed shut, sending a tremble through the walls which yet stood around them.

And then the stone fell silent.

She laid there, unmoving for a while with Cedric still in her arms, slick with blood and sweat. The streams of tears running across her face slowed and stagnated into muddy streaks as she eventually found her breath again, wheezing through bones that felt as though they'd been pulverized and then molded back together.

Cedric's body continued to heave against her, his pulse, still throbbing against her fingers. She looked down at him, the blue of his eyes having been restored at last.

"We did it," she whispered.

If he did respond, Serana was already at the point where she couldn't tell if it was real or if she was just imagining it.

 **0-0-0**

By the time they limped into open air, she couldn't hear his breaths anymore in the howling wind. All of the precious effort that she had spent to stand him upright again seemed to rip right out of her shaking hands with one gust of blinding snow.

"Cedri-" her cry for his name, vain as it was to think that the mere sound of her voice could help him keep going, tapered off into a retch as frigid air surged into her open mouth.

She took one step forward, her boots crunching on ice. A whole second passed by before Cedric followed, the blackened and waterlogged tatters around his feet scraping over the snow. The ice spike lodged in his chest seemed almost indiscernible from the shingles of frost dangling from the dry flesh surrounding that wound now.

 _He's not going to make it._

A wince broke over the serene visage she'd meant to prepare as she grasped Cedric's shoulder with her wounded arm, the bloodstained threads of her cape fluttering in the wind. Her other hand reached for his chin, the skin now cold enough to send a tingle through her fingertips. His pulse dribbled like water from a stalactite. Blood from a fang.

"Cedric," she murmured, nose nearly touching his with how close she had to bring herself to be heard over the storm. There was a flicker of focus in those glassy blue eyes, a moment when they met hers and the strained ripples in his irises smoothed into a frozen stillness. She could feel her own brow softening at the sight, a tranquility finally gracing her still-frayed nerves. "We're going to make it."

It was only a moment, but at that split second, peaceful in the midst of the storm, she really did believe her own words. She really did believe that she saw the faintest of crescent smiles creep over Cedric's frost-shingled lips.

It was no trick of the mind, however, to hear his feet crunching over the ice alongside hers. To feel his fingers wrapped around her palm. To feel his breath, faint as it was, touching upon her cheek.

She tightened her grasp around him. Ignored the cold truth that she could feel her own pace sagging already. Blotted out the mental map drawn in her mind, the windswept miles that yet still laid between them and the docks of Winterhold- if they could even find the boats that their pursuers had rode in on in the midst of the storm.

Even when she heard a mangled cry pierce through the veil of snow from behind them, there was naught but steely determination driving her to glance back and assess what threat yet remained.

Her eyes narrowed, her vision sharpened, and plucked out the shuffling horror from the drifts of snow. Sarpa dragged his clawed feet across the ice, his twisted figure caught in a hideous stasis between lordly ascendancy and his mortal trappings. His face was frozen in lashing contortions, a mere scrap of scraggly black hair flailing in the wind from his tattered scalp. He screamed a wordless shriek at her, malformed lips snapping over broken bones that would not mend. Thrashed in wild gestures with a twisted arm, cords of grey muscle bursting through snow white skin that was half-torn, half-shed. Pointed at her with three wicked black talons that crushed the lithe fingers bending awkwardly underneath their weight.

She kept moving forward. Cedric did not falter by a single step.

But Sarpa drew ever closer. Close enough for her to discern his other arm, pale white grated by ribbons of raw gashes, dangling by a few sinewy threads from a twisted black hole into his shoulder. Close enough for her to see the stumpy wings protruding from his back, the stillborn membranes run through with streaking gashes, the bony limbs twitching with his shuffling convulsions.

Crippled as he was, he would still catch up with them. And unlike her, he still had an arm to fight with.

…

The wind gusted by, shaking the sword sheathed on her waist. The weight of the ebony finally seemed to register, tugging at the fabric of her breeches.

She glanced over at Cedric. His expression had not changed from when she had last looked into his eyes, the serenity frozen on his face almost eerie.

Sarpa howled behind her again.

It was hard, pulling her fingers away from his. Harder still to see the pale smile on his lips break ever so slightly when his fingers reached out again and brushed against naught but the snow.

Gently, balancing him on her good arm, she eased him down to the ice, holding his gaze all the way down.

"Stay here," she said. "I'll be right back."

She waited for a moment, watching for a glimmer of acknowledgement, a nod, a whisper of good luck- but there was nothing. Nothing more than a blank daze of icy blue eyes that would not break from her gaze.

"I promise."

Her heart, still as it was, seemed to swell with a weight unknown to her as she tore herself away, and grasped the cold, black handle of the longsword sheathed at her side. It slid out from its leather sleeve with nary a whisper in the howling wind, balancing itself perfectly in her subtly trembling hand as she steadied her breathing against the currents whipping at her face.

A spark of recognition glimmered in Sarpa's beady black eyes. His claws curled, and the tatters of skin around his mouth stretched up against the jagged remnants of his jaw.

The crossguard of her weapon rested firmly against her thumb and curled index finger as she drew her arm out, aiming the tapered edge of the blade at Sarpa.

He had been right- the design of the weapon was exceedingly plain, solid black and without a hint of embroidery. The ebony was all-encompassing, unblemished, symmetrical. Spotless perfection.

She strode forward evenly, the distance between them closing at a pace she could only describe as natural. Every step she took brought a greater surge of clarity to her snow-blotted vision. A stalwart firmness to her arm, rigid as a bulwark in the wind, at the same time tensile and poised.

She saw Sarpa's wings twitch. Saw those leathery membranes mend, thread-thin fibres bridging fissures. Saw the bony limbs that they were anchored to coil behind his hunched back, saw his shredded lips retract behind his teeth, snarling in anticipation.

Her legs were already planted into the ice, coiled against the ground by the time Sarpa snapped his wings downwards.

He lunged over the ten or so footstrides that remained between them, the talons which dangled from his gnarled feet gliding over the ice and shearing up a veil of glassy shards in the wind. His clawed arm stretched out in front of him like a grotesque lance, black talons curling towards her.

She caught them on the edge of her blade, with barely even the slightest of motions to aim it as such. Sparks splashed against the ice as ebony clashed against claw. She let her arm bend with the impact, let herself be carried along with Sarpa's bulldozing momentum. Let his tattered face come within an inch of her own, slowed at the crux of his lunge, before she stepped to the side and released the tension that had been coiling in her arm with one swift stroke.

Sarpa lurched away, his feet stabbing for purchase in the ice with frantic motions. She could feel him shudder as her sword bit into the bone of his jaw, feel the fibres crack and split around its honed edge as though the blade were a part of her own arm.

The flesh dragging at the bottom of his face fell to the ice in a blood-spewing heap, torrents of gargling rage following in its wake.

He came at her again, claw raised high above his head.

Swiftly, she sidestepped, cleaving down towards his shoulder and catching the joint of one of his wings as he lunged right past her.

A wordless howl joined that of the wind, Sarpa's clawed feet audibly stomping into the ice as he righted himself and pivoted around again. Fingers and talons both flexed within his deformed hand, their motions jerky, the sound of bones that did not fit the monstrous profile of his digits creaking and popping. She met his bloodied half-snarl with a smirk, the faintest of breaks in her tranquil visage, goading him to come at her again.

Scream as he did, he seemed to know better than to take the bait.

Ploddingly, they circled each other in the wind, the obscuring drifts of snow mercifully shielding them from the rays of the sun.

Rivulets of blood coated the ice with every step Sarpa took. Serana's lame arm remained still at her side, comfortably wrapped in the blood-soaked remains of her cape.

But she still had Cedric to worry about.

She didn't let that thought break the poised stance she held herself in however, didn't let it push her into the disastrously reckless strike that Sarpa no doubt wanted her to take. If she died- Cedric would die for certain.

 _Come on, you bastard._

Her fingers tightened when she saw Sarpa stop- _freeze_ mid-stride, his left foot hovering just above the ground. He was open. He was vulnerable, like a deer caught in her sights in the tundra- she could end it now, if she just took the lunge.

" _You never had a clear shot to begin with."_

She drew in a breath, stopping in her circling strides and angling herself in preparation for another snap-strike from Sarpa.

But even then, he didn't move. In fact, his eyes seemed to go elsewhere entirely, the muted irises that laid beneath the inky lenses darting around in the snow.

Serana didn't break from her posture. She flexed her fingers, readjusting her grip on her weapon. It was becoming harder to keep it stable- inexplicable tremors ran from her legs straight up to her arms, rippling through her bones.

The tremors grew stronger, and she found her own steely demeanor faltering as well.

Footsteps.

Rumbling footsteps.

A queer chill ripped through the blizzard around her and dug right into her spine.

This time, she knew what the incandescent droplets of red were before they could take shape within the deluge of snow. Peering at her over Sarpa's gnarled shoulders. Fleshless lenses, still burning with embers of crimson.

Sarpa whirled straight around, his arm outstretched, his legs propelling him towards the beast behind him before it even burst out of the howling snow-winds. No longer shrouded in shadow, Serana could almost discern its figure now- it was wreathed in a stony black carapace, the shaping of it, warped from countless impacts as it was, too uniform to be formed from natural growth.

Tatters of white cloth were drawn over its breast, a few malformed streaks of black inked into the rags that remained. Sarpa ripped through those remnants and sunk his claws into the black shell beyond. His talons twisted and tore, carving great craters into the unspeakable mass, one of his talons digging into the flaking cavity that his lightning sorcery had blasted open.

It could not stop the dull silver blade that was arcing down towards him. And he, lodged firmly into the creature's chest, could not pull himself free.

The creature's blade sheared into the thick cords of muscle around his neck, silencing his roar before it could even leave the tattered remains of his throat. It ripped down diagonally, cleaving through his other wing and sawing into the shoulder anchoring his claws to the creature's chest.

Shards of bone spewed out with thick streams of blood, the veritable burst of vitae erupting from the rags of flesh which unraveled around Sarpa's bones drowning out the splashes that Serana's blade had drawn out onto the ice.

The creature's foot, cast from a pillar-like mass of the black armor suffocating the rest of its form, slammed into Sarpa's warped torso. What remained of Sarpa following that impact rocketed down into the ice, his head and arm splattering down into the slick film of blood pouring from his weeping wounds.

And then Serana felt the creature's gaze fall upon her.

Its blade, still stained in same blazing shade that burned within those alien eyes, lashed out towards her.

It clashed against her own sword, gnashing against the ebony in an ear-piercing shriek. Fiery strain enveloped her muscles, her bones quaking under her assailant's relentless momentum. She winced, but held her ground, coiling her legs against the blood-slick ice. Balancing in the storm that assailed her senses.

With a swift movement, she stepped to the side, exhaling a breath she did not realize she'd been holding in. Her arm curved outwards and guided the creature's blade through the rest of its arc harmlessly.

Frigid cold flooded her lungs as she gathered herself for a lunge, stepping forwards in the same movement that she righted her weapon again to close the sizeable distance that still lay between her and the creature.

Before she could so much as assess where to strike, she saw the metallic gleam of its blade already swinging back at her. It came from the side, its arc too wide for her to sidestep, too low for her to duck under. Too close. Too quick.

Its blade smashed into hers, her arm more crumpling with the blow than coiling. The strike drove her sword close enough to graze against the tip of her nose, sparks raining down on her hair as a roar bellowed out uncontrollably from her throat. Her knees bent, her boots nearly slipping on the red ice beneath her.

Pushing at the crux of the swing, her bones crackling with agony, her muscles feeling as though they were splintering on their own, she nonetheless turned the creature's blade away again, a stream of sparks tapering off from the point where its edge and her weapon's edge parted.

Her legs, feeling lighter than the rest of her body, all but thrust her into a leap away from the thing.

But it followed.

Her eyes widened when she saw the tip of its sword stretched out towards her, lunging for her chest even before her boots touched the ice again.

Too close. Too quick.

She twisted her body, at the point where she could almost feel the air parting around the oncoming blade's razor tip against her cheeks. It speared right past her face, grazing close enough to scrape against the eight-pointed star clasped to her garments, inches away from her neck.

The creature's visage bore down on her, driven forth by its unstoppable momentum. Its chrome teeth glinted in the frosty white, drawn together into a soundless, alien snarl. Its crystalline eyes bored into hers, the faint rays of red they cast now searing into her jellied cornea.

She found herself raising the point of her sword towards that light, the unblinking lenses that it refracted through. Fragments of seconds seemed to pass as hours in the red haze that it bathed her in, her fingers straining to maintain their grip on the handle of her weapon.

She felt something cool rush across her left shoulder. Soothing, almost, slicing through the chafing, soaked cloth of her coat, stripping away the thin layer of embroidered leather laid over it.

And then she saw the splash of blood from the corner of her eye. Felt the catastrophic scrape of metal against bone.

Serana gasped as a quaking shudder rippled through her body, snapping her sword arm off course.

The rounded plate of the creature's right shoulder, smeared over in stark bone white, was already crumpling. Battered to the point that sections of it looked as though they were blossoming from the wicked fissure cleaving down the middle of it, crystals of magickal hoarfrost still lingering around that gash.

It was there that her ebony sword lodged itself, spearing through layers of metal in a shower of sparks before blunting against another wall of the same.

Stuck. Caught in a deadly trap, just like the ice-sabre that struck it before her own weapon. Just like Sarpa, striking into the creature's chest.

She released her grasp, faintly aware of the sharpness leaking out of her vision with the renewed spray of blood pouring from the fresh gash hewn into her left arm. She didn't dare glance over to see how deep it cut. Pure instinct drove her diving downwards, and it perhaps did save her from the creature's follow-up swing. Bloodstained metal grazed by the top of her hair, cleaving apart the braids that sat in a crown on top of her head.

And then the breath was crushed out of her lungs. The ground rushed up to meet her, a colossal weight grinding against her spine and the Elder Scroll drawn over it.

Her now empty sword arm shot out, elbow smashing against the ice in a fresh spike of coursing agony. A breathless rasp escaped her lips along with a spray of blood-tinged spittle, smearing over her muddled reflection.

Her arm, having strained so much already, now fought desperately to keep her aloft, keep the entirety of her body from driving right into the cold ground. Her vision swam, alight with blinking dots that seemed to glimmer like stars across the snow.

Something cracked, and it wasn't the ice.

She became faintly aware of a flash of murderous silver reflecting off the bloodied mirage beneath her.

Shadows swarmed at her periphery, reaching into the splotches of black that were blossoming out from the fuzzy centre of her vision, coalescing with them.

Something grazed against the back of her neck, icy and metallic, tapered to a hair-point.

" _Please… don't hurt her…"_

Maddening whispers snaked into her ringing ears, the jingle of a metal chain. Was it the void of death embracing her that caused the sensation of the creature's blade on her neck to recede? That eased the crushing force pressing down upon her spine?

"… _don't hurt her…"_

Her eyesight cleared just long enough for her to look up, to see Cedric dragging himself over, the spear of ice in his chest scraping against the ground.

"Cedric!" She cried, ice and grime flaking off of her cheeks. "Run!"

Her words fell on deaf ears, lost to the wind. Cedric's gaze was cast upwards, pale and glimmering, swimming with the glassy blue of skies above. Chained wrist outstretched pleadingly.

She opened her mouth again, this time only a gnarled seethe scraping out as her quivering teeth gnashed down on her tongue.

" _She's all I have left…"_

A cataclysmic shiver raced through her body as snow touched on the raw bone of her ravaged left arm. Her right arm buckled, and she plunged downwards.

Her cheek slammed against the ice, pushing a phlegm stridden line of blood out between her teeth. The shadowy numbness that had been enveloping her shattered against the wall of agony that coursed through her nerves, her drooping eyelids snapping wide open.

That crushing force which had been pinning her down had drawn away fully now. Her tongue, speared through by her teeth and running with wetness, somehow found the strength to untangle itself from the roof of her mouth.

Wine-thin blood pooled beneath her, seeping into frost-matted strands of hair, slipping against the skin of her chin.

It stung, colder than even the ice she laid upon.

Hastily conjured breaths puffed out in clouds of white before her eyes, every heave of her chest seeming to stab at her ribs. The creature's shadow fell over her- and then passed by just as quickly as it eclipsed her blaring vision.

The ground beneath her trembled with a thunderous march, the resounding rhythm of what seemed like an entire legion carried by one pair of feet.

Cedric. _Cedric!_

Her right arm flailed in minute convulsions, trapped underneath the limp weight of her body. The world spun and crackled with spiderwebs of pain as she rocked her splintering shoulders side to side, agonizingly trying to roll over onto her back.

 _Come on… come on!_

The Elder Scroll rolled off from its bloodstained perch along her spine, clattering against the ground. The rest of her body followed suit shortly after, her right shoulder smacking down next to the scroll's metal rim.

The sky swam with clouds of snow, streaking drifts flowing like bedsheets in the hands of Marian.

" _Let me… see her… one last time…"_

She sucked in a throbbing breath, the influx of chilled air pressing against the walls of her lungs as though it was going to burst out of her chest. She dug her palms into the ground. A searing sting jabbed her through the weightless numbness that had settled around her left shoulder as she pressed down with both hands, her torso slowly, agonizingly pivoting up from the bloody ice.

She squeezed her eyes shut. There was a distinct feeling of the cloth of her coat, the frayed strands of her hair, peeling off from the bloody film beneath her.

The footsteps had halted now, leaving only the muffled wind and the creak of her bones swirling in her ears. Her arms straightened out at the crux of her ascent. The raw strain racing through her joints and down into her fingers, splayed out against the ice, left her certain that her arms would snap off entirely. She didn't care.

She gasped, one last push finally putting her over to the point where her arms could fall limp and sag forwards into her lap. The tatters of the cape that had been wrapped around her left arm slipped off, exposing the wounded flesh beneath entirely to the wind. She didn't care.

" _Sera…"_

"Cedric," she whispered, wondering if he could hear her back.

She did everything she could to face him- her waist twisted, her neck strained, her blood-dripping chin scraping over the weeping fissure gouged into her left shoulder to bring her eyes over to him.

He met her with a warm smile, his tear-coated irises pale with their icy dull blue- just as they had always been.

Just as her father's had been.

" _You're beautiful."_

His gaze flickered, for but a moment, those eyes of his- beautiful in their own right- snapping shut. His chest sagged down, the ice spike driven into it shattering into glassy shards.

Her lip trembled.

His face fell limp against the ice, blood seeping out from the open wound in his chest. It blossomed over the ground, painting his smile in rosy red. Sliding up the surface of his now-bare arm, tatters of furs soaking in the red.

His fingers, splayed out as though reaching towards her, did not move.

Her chest heaved, heavy with a pain that stung harder than the aches lacing her lungs. A hitch lodged itself into her breath, stabbing deeper than the blade that was now chained to the armored creature standing inches away from Cedric's body. From his _corpse._

A flood of tears welled in her eyes, more blinding than the cold red rays that the creature's eyes cast upon her shaking body.

There was nothing left between them now, no miraculous surge of energy gracing her broken limbs with the strength to fight back, no trump card spell up her sleeve to turn the murderous black-clad thing into dust, no dregs of magicka left in her dry veins to channel such a spell if she even knew one.

But she didn't care.

Her head slumped down fully, bobbing limply in tune with her chest.


	22. Chapter 21

A line of blood slipped down the length of the sword he held, the unnaturally thin fluid as cold as the metal it slid over. It snaked a vile tongue past the crossguard, past the broken chain that was cast over the weapon, and onto the lacerated black ceramite of his hand.

Its impact was lost in the trickle of data that ran behind the lenses of his helm, barely registered, like the flakes of snow which blew against him. Warnings streamed at the periphery of his senses, needling at the ruptures in his armor.

And yet he felt the slightest shadow of a shudder run through his flesh. It was a minute motion which the synthetic fibres beneath the plating of his armor did not mirror, which the cabling under his sundered breastplate did not fuel.

 _Please… don't hurt her._

The streams of data feeding into the back of his mind offered no response to that echoing plea. The man which had spoken those words was dead, after all, his corpse lying limp against the ground.

Blood pooled around the fur rags that clung to the body. Deep crimson, still casting a faint warmth over the canvas of ice that it spilled over.

It was first sign of human life he had found here. And it was slipping away into the cold, beneath his boots.

He glanced back to the chain, returned to its place, wrapped over the crossguard of the sword he grasped. It couldn't be made to fully bind his hand to the weapon anymore, not with the link broken as it was.

…

The jingle of the chain's cleaved ends, dangling in the wind, seemed to register so softly in the confines of his helm. He almost expected it to be carried off into the snow blowing around him, melting away as though it were just a mirage.

 _She's all I have left._

The frown beneath his helm's vox grill deepened.

The creature he had struck down mere moments ago was sitting upright again already. Whatever twisted force had kept its parody of a human body moving before, had driven it with the strength and instinct to avoid being cleaved apart, still remained. It pulled at the body's dangling arms and hunched shoulders with irregular hitches. Sent quivers through the sheets of black hair that hung before its face.

And yet its flesh was as cold as the corpse which lay beside his boots, its heart just as still.

 _Let me see her…_

His thumb instinctively brushed up towards the crossguard of the sword, running over the power cell's activation rune. As when he had done so at the start of the battle, as when he had first tried days before, there was no response. The creature's blood continued to run streaks down the stony silver length of the blade, washing over the coats of dark red that had been ripped from the others before it.

The creature, despite having found the strength to right itself, made no effort to fully rise to its legs, nor to crawl away, nor to defend itself.

…

His other hand, the battered armor knuckles speckled with bone fragments, reached over his fractured breastplate. He grasped the hilt of the creature's sword, still embedded in his pauldron.

A fresh surge of warnings flared in his thoughts as he yanked it free, that unknown metal scraping against frozen and brittle ceramite. Ice-coated particles skittered down from the breach in his pauldron, ripped loose. He ignored them, bringing the creature's weapon level to his gaze, helm's red lenses skimming over the length of the black blade. Over the dark red fluid that slathered its tip, the same corrupted blood that coated the blade he wielded.

He glanced back to the creature. The irregular motions coursing through its body had settled somewhat by now. He could see its eyes, cast firmly downwards in a solemn blankness that felt all too familiar.

He could see the frost-crusted sigil which remained just beneath the creature's neck, the dulled metal bearing a noticeable scar where his strike had grazed it.

The ice trembled as he stepped past the fur-clad corpse at his feet. He let the creature's weapon fall from his hand and clatter down next to the human's body.

His legs and the armor encasing them propelled him into strides that seemed to urge him into a sprint, urge him to match the furious rhythm of his hearts.

His teeth ground together. His pace remained steady.

Even then, the space between him and the creature closed all too quickly. He saw its shoulders hike forwards, its eyes squeeze shut. Its hands, the fingers he had briefly glimpsed conjuring hellish swathes of witch-fire, laid limp in its blood-damp lap.

The barred soles of his boots ground to a halt when he was a mere pace outside of striking distance from it. His weapon remained at his side, the bloodstained blade inert, clasped in an armored hand that, perhaps, was never meant to wield it. The metal links of the broken chain upon its crossguard jingled softly.

He could see the creature's lips parting, its chest contracting beneath the damp fabric of its garments, expelling a heatless breath into the wind.

 _ **No pity.**_

Countless foes had already fallen before the blade, whether pulverized by the power field, or cleaved apart by the cold metal underneath.

 _ **No remorse.**_

Whether it had been chained to the hand of Sword Brother Mortis, or his own.

What was so different about this one?

 _ **No-**_

His vox caster snarled to life.

"What are you?"

Its eyelids snapped open.

It raised one hand. Its arm was possessed by such a trembling lethargy that he couldn't mistake it for an act of aggression, even though every neuron that bridged his body to his armor seemed to pulse with furor. Its quivering fingers brushed locks of raven hair out of its face.

And then it turned up to him, its eyes piercing through the distance that remained between them. Its pale visage remained blank, its lips parting only to allow the frigid air to swell into its corpse of a body.

And so he asked again. His vox caster suppressed the slightest tremor that had wormed its way into his voice with metallic spite.

"What are you?"

It froze, mouth hanging open mid-breath, fingers tangled in a few strands of hair. It blinked, its expressionless irises flickering.

He inched his left boot forward, the barred soles scraping over the ice. His right arm hefted the sword clasped in his hand upward ever so slightly. The creature's gaze didn't break from his, the starkly unnatural shade of its eyes piercing through the lenses of his helm.

When it finally spoke, its wispy words were nearly lost to the wind blowing past them.

"I'd like to ask you the same thing."

There was a husky melancholy that weighed down its voice, that mirrored the slump of its ragged body.

"You are in no position to ask anything," he answered coldly, the words seething through his helm with a guttural reverb.

The creature's gaze swiveled away, the ponderous arc of those amber-trimmed irises falling down to the bloodied blade that he carried.

"And you are?"

His grip tensed, his flesh coiling beneath the black plating that had been soiled by the creature's blood. The creature's hand trailed down the side of its cheek, tracing the salty path that had been blazed by a long-frozen tear droplet.

Eventually, its fingers brushed down to the wound in its other arm, absentmindedly running over the blood-slick folds of skin and damp cloth that surrounded the fissure hewn into its flesh.

"It doesn't make much of a difference whether I answer or not, does it?"

The blade he held snapped up to its neck in a flash, the nerves bridging his body to armor surging with an instinct that escaped conscious thought. The tip stopped just short of spearing through the sigil which was stitched into the collar of the creature's garments. His twin hearts pumped fervently, each heart seeming to pull the synthetic muscle of his armor in a different direction.

"I would know why this human gave the last of his breath begging for your survival."

The creature's eyes drifted back to his own, its chin angling back up, unheeding of how the motion brought its neck inching ever so closer to cold metal that was already sodden in its blood.

"I ask you this one last time, creature, if you wish to court death, then hold your tongue as you see fit: what are you?"

A frigid silence fell between them.

The creature's lips curled out of the façade of a smile they had been holding. They did not budge, they did not quiver, and the only response he heard to his ultimatum was the muted howl of the wind.

 _Don't hurt her._

 _ **Why?**_

Perhaps that was one more thing he simply was not meant to know.

His arm coiled to deliver the execution stroke, to shatter the sigil that rested dully upon the creature's neck. The sigil that mirrored the eight-pointed star of the archenemy. The fact that it bore such a striking resemblance- that was all he needed to know, wasn't it?

A gust of snow drifted by, small particles prickling quietly against his armor.

"I'm a vampire."

A breath rasped out from behind his vox grill, the numb silence and stillness which had taken root in his bones seeming to tremble with the expulsion of air.

It was said, amongst the Chapter, that the discovery of just onevampire had warranted the intervention of an entire Crusade. That the act of slaying it was what had risen their current High Marshal to the ranks of the Sword Brethren in the first place. That others of its wretched ilk were so rare, they had been thought by many to be merely an old Terran myth.

He had never seen one. None of his Brothers had either. He wondered if they could've recognized this _thing_ before him now as one by sight. If Brother Guillame would've given the kill order that he needed to hear now.

 _Please don't hurt her._

"You want to know why this human… Cedric- stood by me?" A droplet spilled out from the shimmering red orb of its eye onto its cheek.

Its eyelids drooped, as though the weight of the snowflakes balancing on its eyelashes was too much to bear.

"It's because he didn't care what I was. Vampire, royalty- it didn't matter to him. Maybe only because he didn't really know the sorts of things that the clan has done. Maybe that let him see past all… this."

Its knuckles grazed against the tip of the sword held to its throat, fingers snaking around the metal sigil beneath its neck. They twisted and pulled. The star came loose from its stitching, a few threads dangling like cut puppet strings as it plummeted down to the ground. It clattered unceremoniously against the ice to the side of the vampire's leg, as dull as it had been when it was latched to the vampire's garments.

"I thought I could help him- I _wanted_ to help him. Maybe that just… made things worse for him."

It inhaled a shaky breath. Its throat contracted and relaxed with the motion, its skin dangerously close to the tip of the blade.

"But what's done is done."

Its eyes flickered shut, its lips still trembling.

When those eyes snapped open again, they were cleared of the tears that had been swimming within them. Vivid, stark red staring back at him.

He did not respond, his tongue frozen as though the chill of the alien world outside had sunk its claws through his armor like the foul abomination he had put down before this one.

"That chain." Those two simple words seemed to make the jingling metal links ring like cathedral bells. "Cedric told me he was plagued by visions, voices, leading him towards it."

Its eyes seemed to pierce through the lenses of his helm.

"Does it belong to you?"

His thoughts floundered in the cold trickle of data that his armor continued to feed to the void inside his helm. The breaches in his armor could not be sealed. Just as the machine spirit in the blood-tainted sword he held could not be placated, just as the chain which was cast over it could not be reforged.

"I cannot decide that."

The vampire's gaze sharpened into a glare. The rest of its face, uncanny in its pale resemblance to a human's, took on an expression as cold as the snow drifting past them.

"What can you decide, then?"

His tongue remained still, tense with the deathlike rigor that gripped his armor.

His heartbeats pounded in his ears like primitive war drums.

He'd not needed the guiding voice of Brother Guillame to strike down the other creatures that had been pursuing this vampire. He'd not needed the blessing of the Chapter to wield the now-dormant blade he held during that battle.

'Suffer not the unclean to live.' 'Abhor the witch, destroy the witch.' Two simple vows were all that had been needed to flood his veins with numbing fury, to erase the doubts that had weighed upon him so before battle.

What had changed?

The remnants of his tabard fluttered against his armor, torn by claws, scorched by sorcerous lightning. Inky tatters were all that remained of the black cross emblazoned on the soiled white fabric.

There was no malice to be seen within the unnatural eyes of the vampire. No treacherous sleight of its cold and limp hands.

"It is not my place to decide." The fearsome bellow of his vox caster echoed hollowly back at him.

"If you will not decide, will you listen?"

The alien winds howled by, snow grazing against his battered armor.

 _Please don't hurt her._

The vampire's eyes were alight with vividness, even as its tainted blood trickled out from the wound in its arm and ran down to its fingers.

A sigh wisped out from its lips, the wind unable to drown out that soft sound.

The hand of its intact arm crept across the ice, the stride of its fingers deliberate and overt. His lenses watched the wounded arm instead, images of witch-fire springing to life in its hands fresh in the stream of memories that flowed in the back of his helm.

Not a single ember of warmth could be seen in its palms now.

A single one of its fingers grazed against supple parchment. His helm pivoted, the fibres beneath his cracked gorget craning only so slightly to follow where the vampire pointed to. An embroidered scroll lay on the ice at its side, the spiderwebs of lines faintly visible in the scroll's surface almost seeming to pulse at its touch.

"It's said that written within this scroll is a prophecy. One that says the sun will be blotted out, and eternal darkness will fall upon the land."

The tremor which eked through his nerves was swallowed up by his armor. It trickled down to his arm, the tension beneath the plating coiled without release.

"My... father… will stop at nothing to reclaim it. To bring that prophecy to fruition."

For a moment, it seemed as though the blade he held slid forward on its own, as though the machine spirit within the blood-tarnished weapon possessed such righteous fury that it could manifest the strike its wielder could not make.

It was not so. The chain weighed upon the sword just as it did his hand.

The vampire that slid its own head forward. Its voice swelled, an uncanny conviction lacing the husky velvet tones which sliced through the frosty air that separated them.

"He can't be allowed to do that."

His helm drifted back to its unwavering gaze. Every heatless breath it took brought its skin grazing against the bloodstained point of the blade levelled at its neck.

One second passed, and the razor point nicked a micro-fissure into its throat. Another trickled by, and this time a thin droplet of blood slipped out from the point of contact.

"Why would you stand against your own kin?"

The colors within its eyes so vivid that they seemed to cast an unnatural light of their own.

"Not every vampire in my father's court wants to see the prophecy fulfilled- but the rest follow my him fanatically. You've seen how bold they can get already. Their actions would bring the wrath of the entire mortal realm down the clan."

Its voice remained level, softer than he had heard it before, but enduring in the howl of the icy wind nonetheless.

"Maybe running away with their scroll just made it worse. Maybe it's already too late for them as it is. But the rest of the world shouldn't be made to suffer in eternal darkness."

There was no reason to believe it was lying. Perhaps that was what made what it said all the more difficult to process. He saw its gaze trail past him for a moment, an instinct in the back of his mind knowing that it was looking towards the fallen human and not its discarded weapon.

His sword arm drew back, the coils of force that had been tightening within his synthetic and flesh muscle at last unravelling. His own movements seemed to pass in a blur as the blade raised up over his head.

And then it arced down. The vampire's eyes closed, a porcelain mask of serenity washing over its dead flesh. Its neck went slack, its shoulders slumped. The blade struck down before it could so much as expel the breath gathering in its lightly nicked throat. The bloodstained edge fell upon the metal sigil by the vampire's side, in an empty mimicry of an executioner's stroke that should have cleaved its head from shoulders long ago. The accursed eight-pointed star fractured on contact, the splintering sound of the dull metal it was cast from ringing hollow in his helm.

The vampire, no less intact than it had been moments earlier, flinched. He saw the flesh between its eyes pinch, saw its shoulders jerk upwards. It froze in the midst of its micro-contortions, head angled just slightly away from the blade resting against the ice beside it.

His arms returned to his sides swiftly, his armor refusing to let the quaking shivers that threatened to overtake his flesh break his posture. The blade slid past the vampire as it retracted, not another drop of its blood staining the stony silver alloy.

The vampire's eyes peeled open, slowly, as though struggling against some invisible force holding its eyelids shut. His entire body and armor both remained rooted to the ice, unable to much as muster the force to turn his helm away from the thing's eyes. The amber-trimmed red irises beneath its eyelashes swelled like alien suns on the horizon.

A numb silence fell over them both, the dimmed glare of the sun above filtering down to them through swirling clouds of snow.

He whispered to himself, beneath the snarl of his vox caster, as he had many times in the past days and nights. The meaning of the words was lost to the alien wind, swallowed by its quiet howl- but if he strained his ears just enough, delved far back enough into the stream of memories trickling down his helm, he could almost feel his Brothers chanting alongside him once more. Kneeling within the candlelit holds of the Oriflamme, drifting amongst the stars beyond, waiting to one day be reunited with the Crusade Fleet.

His free hand took hold of the chain draped over the sword he held, sluggishly working to tie it into a knot over the crossguard.

" _Without the dark, there can be no light…"_


	23. Chapter 22

She could still feel the snow prickling at her bones within her arm. Could still feel her own blood running down her skin. Her lungs inflated, frost imbued air rushing down her throat. She tested her fingers, a muted signal rippling down nerves that felt as though they'd been burnt out. Her fingers twitched, the skin beneath her nails barely registering the coarse ice beneath them.

One of her hands brushed against the remnants of her cape, the once sumptuously tailored fabric now lying upon the ice like a discarded washcloth. Black thorns ran through the sundered flesh in the wound that it had been covering, tangled within the split fibres of muscle. They fed steady pulses of pain to the back of her muddled mind, running up and down the battered length of her spine.

A ceaseless sting assailed her eyes, their tear-stripped lenses searing under a crimson glare. Her eyelids ached, the congealed crusts of ice and salt in their corners crackling with an urge to be spared from the gaze of the creature before her. Its pillar-like boots stood sharply and starkly out from the canvas of swirling white around it.

Ponderously, her gaze crawled up their dull black length, eyes enduring the glare from above. She caught a glimpse of some fleshless, rubbery grey mass in the gap between its legs and the armor plates cresting over its waist. Bundles of ribbed tubes ran up over its breast, beyond the craggy fissure hewn by Sarpa's claws.

Serana's neck strained as her eyes trailed up to meet its own gaze.

Though its weapon rested by its side, the expression that it wore now was the same as when its blade sang for her blood. Unwavering, eerily blank and yet abstractly echoing a snarl at the same time. _Forged_ into its head with the same uncanny precision that seemed to have molded the rest of its body, its blade, the ridged cylinder that had exploded in the cave- and that damned chain.

Her fingers inched towards the Elder Scroll at her side. The motions she put herself through felt murkily familiar, right up until her index finger grazed against the warm paper surface of the scroll. Warm, as though there were flowing blood and taut flesh beneath it.

Her palm slid over the entirety of the scroll. Her fingers wrung together over its curved surface, nails digging in.

Its metal rim scraped across the ice as she hefted its weight off the ground. A throbbing soreness blossomed over her arm's muscles, spiking into her shoulder as she slung the strap anchored to the scroll back over herself. She gave it barely a second for its weight to settle against her spine before her hand reached over her lap to the bloody remnants of her cape.

The sodden cloth pressed up against her wound once more, the sting of cold against split flesh numbed by the sheen of blood that trickled out. Her lithe fingers danced clumsily around it, wrapping tatters together into a limp tumor that bulged from her arm.

Her teeth ground together, breaths seething out through the razor slits between them as she pulled back her legs and set the soles of her boots against the bloodied ice. Her knees creaked like the rusted joints of a decayed door.

The hand of her wounded arm tensed at the side of her hip, mirroring the motion of her other. Flakes of blood and grime scraped against its palm as a faint tremble traveled over her blood slick skin. Her vision swam, this time swirling with a rush of nausea rather than tears. She squeezed her eyes shut, and then pushed her broken frame of a body upwards.

Darkness swam around her, the distant roar of the ocean drowning her ears in the howling wind. Blood seemed to ebb and weave in a pounding flow against her skull. An empty retch surged up her throat, making her knees tremble, her abdomen buckle. She took a step out into the swirling abyss, boot slamming down onto the ice with an impact that quivered up through her bones.

Her legs steadied themselves, propping up the limp mass of bone and skin that remained of her upper half. Coughs racked through her, the faintly fetid twang of her own blood stinging against her tongue. A voice in the back of her head mewled amongst the swirls of black noise, timidly wondering just how much blood had been ripped and drained out of her veins. Her fingers tightened their grip on her thighs. The frayed bundles of muscle in her arms tensed.

Her eyes peeled open, gazing down upon the speckles of red-tinted droplets splattered on the ice between her feet. The little bit she'd coughed up. She reckoned there was barely enough to coat the bottom of a wine chalice.

 _I'm still alive._

Her spine ached, the ridges groaning with a pain from a lingering weight that still pressed down on her, far heavier than the scroll which was drawn over there now. The titanic pillars of the creature's boots rested at the periphery of her vision, unmoving.

 _It is not my place to decide._

Even muffled by the murk of memory, warped and distorted by metal teeth, the creature's words from before seemed to boom with a bone trembling clarity in her mind. Too much so to be a mere figment of her imagination.

Her fingers, shaking with the exertion that tremored through her arm, dug into the grimy crust clinging to her eyelids. Dust, ice, and salt peeled away from tender flesh.

Splotches of black flashed in her vision as she straightened herself out. When she blinked them away, she found her gaze level to the creature's chest. Frayed ribbons of white and inky black continued to flutter around it. Its massive shoulders had not budged from when she'd last looked at it.

 _It is not my place to decide._

Its words echoed in her ears in an empty reprise.

"What will you do now?" Her words came out softer than she'd imagined they would, her lips stiff with a tension that mirrored the urge to clench her hands into fists.

Nothing but the wind answered her. She couldn't even say the silence surprised her.

"My father's court has the nose of a bloodhound. If you stay here, they'll find you."

She could almost hear the sheen of ice coating over its head cracking as it tilted its gaze down towards her ever so slightly.

"You may have slain one of his lesser lords, destroyed the retinue accompanying him- but you won't survive another encounter with his court."

The crimson glare was inscrutable as ever, a cold void of red- but she did not cow away from it. Even as its voice, echoing with an otherworldly reverb, rumbled out in response.

"Then I will die battling against them."

"You'd die fighting a futile battle."

Alone, unknown by anyone else- would it bleed when the hounds tore through its outer shell? Was there any flesh at all for the clan's beasts to sink their teeth into? Or would all that remained of it be nothing more than an empty husk of metal?

She trailed off before she could spew forth those thoughts, an uncomfortable tingle in the back of her mind commanding her to stop.

"Greater than I have died for less."

The limp corpse of Cedric laid a ways away behind the statue-still creature, almost blotted out by its bulk- but the sight of his rosy red blood, spreading across the ice in a grotesque blossom, burned bright in her memory. Burned bright within the lenses of the creature's eyes.

"You're right," she said, the serene murmur slipping off her tongue tempered by bitterness. "Cedric died to find you, after all."

Something in the back of her mind told her to back away then and there, turn and leave this pitiful thing to its miserable fate- but something else drove her to stay. Drove her cracked lips to speak. It sounded faintly of chiming metal in the wind.

"Died for some damnable trinket of a chain."

She could hear its grip tightening on its weapon, the muted grind of metal scraping against metal barely lasting a moment, but piercing through the deluge of wind. She waited – a second, then another. The wracking soreness and pain across her body did not cease. The weight of the scroll upon her back did not ease. The howl of the wind did not fade.

But the creature spoke. There was no anger to be heard in its voice, no more force than usual that could be discerned from the metallic bellow that rumbled forth from its barred teeth.

"He died for you as well."

And yet its words seemed to strike that much harder. Reverberate off the doubts that throbbed in the back of her mind.

She didn't think on it, couldn't, despite the ringing echoes of her thoughts.

"I'm not the one _deciding_ to throw away the sacrifice he made."

Its metal maw raised up enough to reveal its neck, comprised of the same rubbery grey material she had glimpsed between its joints. Its teardrop shaped eyes turned skywards, as though searching the swirling clouds above. As though it were a child, lost in a forest, casting its gaze up from its own immeasurably small form to the towering trees surrounding it.

Her own eyes slipped downwards, towards the sword clasped in the creature's hand. The silvery metal of the blade mirrored that which comprised the chain tied over the crossguard, only blemished by streaks of blood. Neither it nor the creature that held it moved.

Her lips pursed, the agonizing wound in her arm palpable even as she fought to blot out the pain.

Her legs tensed, an instinct driving her to turn around and find the boats Sarpa's party had arrived on. To leave behind this thing, her sword, Cedric's body. To carry on by herself, into the wilderness of Skyrim- in spite of the odds, with how wounded and drained she was.

It was the same instinct that had driven her to leave the inn on that fateful night when she'd first met Cedric. The consequences of ignoring that instinct then were plain as day now.

So why did she ignore it yet again?

"Come with me."

Its gaze seemed to trail back down towards her with such a lethargy, as though the frost had sunk into the fibres of its neck. Perhaps it was merely an effect of the numb haze she felt flooding through herself, filtering through to how she saw the world moving around her.

The snow whipped by her as violently as ever.

The creature's metallic snarl responded, the warping echo coating its words barely able to conceal its vehemence this time.

"Why?"

 _Why?_

The question reverberated in her ears with shades of her own voice, demanding an answer from the frayed lines of thought within her skull.

Why, indeed.

"I have to stop my father. And I can't do it alone. You… like it or not, you're part of this now. You became part of it the moment you spilled Volkihar blood."

The answers seemed to slip off her tongue before she could properly muse over them. Then again, she could've spent hours doing just that, while nursing her wounds with prodding fingers in a boat. That sounded like it would be strangely comforting at the moment.

"Before I left the castle, my handmaiden… she mentioned something about vampire hunters gathering in The Rift. She sounded worried enough that it's probably more than just an angry mob."

She stared into its unblinking teardrop-shaped lenses, unable to peer past the blazing red, but making sure that she held its gaze. Ropy strands of her hair fluttered in the wind before her eyes, but they were barely noticeable in hazy red canvas that they danced before.

"If you have such a hate for vampires, you'd do better to join up with them - make a difference - rather than just throw away your life up here."

She let her words hang. The creature glared back at her, letting the wind howl in her ears- but she waited.

Its eventual answer confirmed her suspicions.

"I know nothing of this land. Nothing of how to find these hunters."

Her neck muscles twitched into a nodding motion, practically of their own accord.

"I have a good idea of where to find them. And… I think, one way or another, they need to know what they're dealing with. So I'm going down there to talk to them."

"Those vampire hunters would be willing to talk with you?"

"Stranger things have happened. And I think even they would understand that something more's going on as soon as they see this," she said, gesturing at the scroll on her back with a limp shrug of her shoulder.

"You 'think'?" The creature's cold metal snarl seemed to bleed into the words that warped out from it.

"I have faith."

Just as she had had faith that Cedric would trust her. At least that much hadn't been misplaced faith.

She exhaled a heatless breath, ice crystals touching upon the raw flesh of her tongue. The sting from where she'd bitten herself was lost to her senses now. Air trickled out through her teeth, joining the snow which continued to blow around her. Her hand drew up to her face, bony fingers brushing aside loose locks of hair.

The creature turned around in what seemed like a flash, its crimson glare blinking out of her eyes. The trembling of the ice, the thunderous rhythm of its march, seemed so quiet now.

Its boots stepped over her discarded weapon without breaking stride.

Only when they came close enough to Cedric's body that they sent ripples through the pool of blood beneath it did she call out after the creature.

"What are you doing?"

Its march ceased.

Its voice boomed out over the distance that separated them, reverberating emptily in her ears.

"If I come with you, I will not leave this body here to be desecrated."

Its massive hand and plucked Cedric's limp corpse up from the ice, draping the body over its shoulder. Dregs of blood splashed onto the bone white carapace there, the body's head flopping limply against the black rim of the shoulder plating. The face was lost, hidden in clumps of dangling black hair that even the wind could not move.

The creature pivoted back around, its gaze meeting hers again.

"A simple burial would be ineffective."

Its words rang in her ears, the implications of its statement clear.

"I don't know if that's what he would've wanted."

"His soul has passed on already. Unless he imparted how he wished his funeral rites to be to you before, there is nobody else to decide."

"So _now_ you think you're in 'the place to decide'? For a man you never even knew?"

It strode back towards her, barely stopping to pluck her weapon off the ice with its free hand.

It made no motion to return it, stopping its march when it was standing mere steps away from her once more.

"Yes."

Perhaps it was unreasonable to feel such a way, but she felt a heavy pang of regret- that she didn't know how Cedric would've preferred his own funeral to be carried out. After everything they'd been through, the few moments they'd shared- could she really say she'd come to know him that well?

The all too familiar answer of the empty wind howled in her ears.

The creature was right in one way though; burying the body in whatever frozen patch of earth they could find out here wouldn't stop the court from sniffing it out. Unearthing it. Reanimating it.

But to burn it? Leave behind nothing recognizable of Cedric at all?

She didn't know if she could make that call.

It made the short distance between her and Cedric's remains seem so much farther. A plain of sprawling ice. Open.

Free.

…

"Sarpa and his vampires followed us in on two boats," she spoke, tongue devoid of any feeling at all now. "You and I can take one to leave and load Cedric's body onto the other. Put in some other wood debris for tinder."

Let the ashes be scattered to the sea. Let them be free. Free of the curse to search the sea that had been placed upon Cedric in life, free of the chain that had bound him as a slave.

The thoughts echoed with little meaning in her mind, but no other voices rose to challenge them. Even the creature before her did not object, head nudging forwards in the faintest of nods.

"Lead on."

She nodded in return before turning on her heel. The muted thump of the creature's footsteps followed closely behind her.

 _I'm sorry, Cedric. I wish I could have done more._

Perhaps that whisper, that final apology, would carry out to the ocean with his ashes.


	24. Chapter 23

Cedric's body touched down gently on a bed of wooden splinters. The same black hand that had prepared the funeral pyre guided his now naked corpse down. A quiet crackle could be heard just above the wailing wind as Cedric's head eased into the kindling, black hair entangling with slivers of wood. The creature's hand seemed to linger for a moment, its plated fingers, scraped and speckled with bone fragments, hovering over Cedric's face. Over his eyes, still faintly coated in frost, never to open again. His lips, set in a pale smile.

Serana turned away, a stony line holding her own lips rigid. Wood creaked beneath her boots as she shuffled towards the front of the boat she was in, arms aching as she toed over the oars resting on the floor. Blankly, her eyes inspected the hull, every color-stripped inch, as she had countless times already.

Her mother had used boats like these for transporting gargoyle statues to the castle, and at least half of the dozen vampires that Sarpa had come with had to have been held within its confines as well. No damage was visible, and its front end floated gently upon the icy seawater.

Yet still she prodded at the ribbed boards of its interior with her boot.

Both of her legs strained with the useless gesture, her bones creaking like the wood beneath her.

Her boots stepped over the front seat as she turned back around, pacing towards the back of the boat. Looking back towards Cedri- towards his corpse.

The creature stood like a statue over his body, in the howling wind. Its armored hands rested at its sides, each grasping a sword hilt- one chained, the other forged for _her_ hand. Her boots rocked to a halt at the edge of the boat, the water sloshing gently against the hull and the gravel shore.

The creature's gaze turned up, glancing off of her eyes. It lingered for but a few seconds, those teardrop lenses of red as cold and hard as the ice coating the gravel that the creature stood upon.

Her fingers curled in towards her palms as its visage straightened out once more.

It raised its arms, holding the two swords out in front of it. The ebony edge of the blade it had taken from her straightened out parallel to the cold length of Cedric's body, the stony silver blade of its own weapon crossing over it.

Her lips remained sealed, her breath unable to escape to the wind even through her nostrils.

The metallic scrape of the two swords striking each other cracked like thunder to her numb ears, the sparks that were drawn from their cold surfaces flashing like lightning to her stinging eyes. Her body trembled, aching muscle fibres begging to be given some small reprieve. She did not budge, unblinking, as sparks dribbled down into the bed of kindling that Cedric's body laid on.

The sea itself seemed to stand still as the creature's arms drew back to its sides. Embers began to dance in the mess of bramble beneath Cedric's body.

The creature's leg raised up, armored boot planting down on the edge of the boat which cradled Cedric's body. The wood creaked, only gently bobbing in the icy water, under the metal-clad foot that had nearly ground her body into the ice.

Thin trails of smoke started to snake out from beneath Cedric's body, wispily tracing through his messy black hair. Kissing upon his cold brow before rising up to the winds.

She could feel her tongue moving within the dry confines of her mouth, straining to say something- anything- as plumes of orange began to ignite.

But there were no words left, no thoughts left. All there was to do was watch as the flames grew brighter and hotter, in pure spite of the winds combing over the ocean. The creature's boot must've pushed forwards, in a motion that her eyes could not catch in the glaring blaze cast by the pyre.

Her eyes followed the burning boat as it drifted out into the water, its gruesome reflection writhing on the surface of the sea. The rigid smile etched into Cedric's face held its shape, in a twisted mockery of contentness. And then, in a flash of flame, it too was carried off to the wind.

 **0-0-0**

"Your wound. Will it hinder you?"

The creature's voice shook her from her firelit reverie, the hollow reverb left in the wake of its cold tones prickling at her skin. The orange tongues of flame in the distance continued their glimmering strobe on the water.

She blinked, eyes still faintly stinging by the time she finally turned her back on Cedric's funeral pyre. The creature stood on the shore, steps away from where the boat lounged in the icy water.

Her good hand trailed down over the bundle of blood soiled cloth on her arm, the sting of barbs lodged within her flesh underneath faintly registering as her fingers pressed down. Uselessly testing for something she already knew.

"It still hurts," she responded, barely able to hear her own words.

The crackle of burning wood, distant as it already was, seemed to echo in her ears. Her eyes drifted down to her boots as her shoulders slumped. "But it'll heal. It's just… going to take some time."

Her fingers picked absentmindedly at the embroidery on the front of her coat. Flickers of orange reflected off of the silvery patterning.

"Are you fit to travel?"

Her breath left her in a wispy sigh, her eyelids relaxing and falling shut.

"Yeah. Just give me a moment."

Those words rolled off her tongue with little feeling or thought. She half expected the creature to deny the request, alien maw snarling with barely concealed vehemence.

It said nothing.

 **0-0-0**

They cast off without ceremony, the creature wordlessly taking up the front pair of oars of the boat. Their wooden handles were held firm in its armored hands as it sat facing her. Their departure passed in a blur to Serana, the open sea and swarming snow enveloping them in what felt like mere moments.

The creature's two arms moved in uncanny tandem with her one good arm, matching the awkward rhythm that she turned her oar with. Adjusting its movements to account for the imbalance of force pushing the boat forward.

Its own blade was fastened down to the floor next to hers, both of their points angled towards her. Her sword's scabbard remained empty, strapped to her waist as the boat bobbed over the currents of the sea.

Neither that detail nor the creature's silent gaze fazed her. Nor the strain that coursed through her arm, nor the sting of lingering thorns in her wound, nor the weight of the Elder Scroll on her back.

Her eyes were set forwards, peering out as far she could into the swirls of snow that howled over the water, watching for the distant silhouettes of the glaciers and cliffs which stood on the northern shores of Skyrim.

She didn't dare break her focus away from that, lest she catch another glimpse of fire on the water.

* * *

 **Apologies for the short chapter, I'll admit this was more wrapping up some things I probably should've thrown into the last one.**

 **Never imagined it'd take me this long to get to this point in the story but hoo boy lol**

 **Thanks to everyone who's stuck around since then. I'm not sure if taking this much of a snail pace with the story was appropriate, but I'm glad it paid off for a few people.**


End file.
